Having attended this years’s BEA, one thing that I will remember about it is the literary author that was the rock star with crazed fans it was hands down David Mitchell, the author of The Bone Clocks. There was literally going to be a scene if people who waited for hours didn’t get their hands on a galley for this book. I never knew there was this crazy underworld for his books Having just finished it I would say that the battle for it was mostly worth it.
The Bone Clocks is another book where Mitchell weaves stories from different perspectives and makes them all come crashing into a finale written to blow your mind. The book is broken into six parts with chapter titles A Hot Spell, The Wedding Bash, and Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet amongst others.
The story’s main character, who is Mitchell’s most memorable to date is named Holly Sykes. She seems like an ordinary girl living in Ireland until her brother goes missing and things start to change for her. She see and hears things that make know that she is different. Through the years we get to see her life as a teenager, a mother, an author, and finally her purpose in the world.
Now, this may all sound like a story that could have been written by a very competent author but when it is in the hands of Mr. Mitchell you know things are never going to be easy. It’s going to be a challenge for the characters as well as for the readers. He is going to take both the characters and the reader on a journey of what it feels like to be alive.
The Bone Clocks has moments where the pages just fly by like a clock faces dial spinning at hyper speed and others where you can feel the second feature of the clock going tick, tock, tick, tock. Chapters one through four are the speed chapters and the last two truly take you out of the novel’s comfort zone and make you wish the novel was more like the last two or like me, wishing that the last two chapters were more like the first four.
Don’t get me wrong, this novel is beautifully written and ambitious, the scenes where Holly is a mother and an author are the book’s best. You truly see what the world has done to her. Also, the battle scenes in the last part of the novel between good and evil are truly riveting but I wonder will life in 2024, which is really isn’t that far away really going play out like that.
Novels that imagine a future world where things are happening in a sci-fi kind of way always make me wonder where and why they want the world to be like that. Life certainly is difficult but our world is only going to change if we come up with solutions that are realistic and people could possibly imagine. Otherwise, people will feel that the world will always be hopeless.
The Bone Clocks wants to come across as the next life will be better than the previous one. I say let’s try to get this one right before we worry about the next one. Tick tock goes .
Thanks for the helpful review. Due to all the hype, I have been sitting on the fence about where I should place this book… on my nightstand to read as soon as I obtain a copy… or on top of the Jenga pile of ‘to get to some day in my lifetime’. I believe I will chose the latter.
Did you ever read this?
I have picked this book up a hundred times and put it back down, I just read your review and now I think I will pick it up to read (finally!) Most of my books that people ask ‘where DID you hear about that?’ I get from 3G1B. Thank you!