Nadia

An unforgettable journey

Reviewed: 08-02-17

An enigmatic character who is thrown into a fairy tale world for one day. Only the world is real but bound to be lost. This is a coming of age story. A story of love and friendship, of happiness and pain. The backdrop of quaint French villages long since gone adds a rare charm. But its the pairing of a brilliant writer with an equally brilliant narrator that makes this book an unforgettable experience. This book allows the reader to step inside the main character who's thoughts and feelings are almost palpable. Instead of being a passive observer, you live the book, you feel the magic. The performance is worthy of the writing. This is one of those books that never lets you go, it's like a dream that keeps coming back and you wonder whether you dreamt it or actually lived it...

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4 people found this helpful

It's a miss for a "wild child of English letters"

Reviewed: 02-15-15

David Mitchell’s narrative is sophisticated and intricate, and full of clever allusions. His literary gift is undisputable.
The Bone Clocks is another of Mitchell’s takes on a disjoint, multi-part, and loosely connected story-telling. But this time it falls short of his previous books.
The first three parts are quite enjoyable. The reader gets attached to the characters that are well molded and a little quirky. The audible version features an excellent performance by Leon Williams as Hugo Lamb while Jessica Ball and Colin Mace do pretty well as Holly and Ed respectively. After the first three parts, you are still not sure what the book is about but a lot of interesting things are happening and you feel like the writer is about to give you a glimpse at the bigger picture and a culmination is near.
Close but no cigar. After part three the book just falls apart.
The Crispin Hershey section is one where you wonder why it’s been written at all. It has no value and doesn’t add anything to the story. Feels like Mitchell just always wanted to write something like this, a take on “Cakes and Ale” of Somerset Maugham. Unfortunately, this was not a good place to stick this story in. The main character evokes exclusively negative emotions and you can’t wait until the book ends. The narrator didn’t make this part any more palatable.
The Marines part, the one where the revelations are abound, is also the weakest one. Maybe Mitchell outsourced the writing of this part to someone else? Anticlimactic, full of underdeveloped and unneeded characters, lacking of the author’s craft, this part showed that maybe Mitchell ventured into a territory he should not have visited. The whole plot contained in Marines section is just weak and contrived and lacking.
Also, older and sicker Holly doesn't pull the reader into the story anymore and leaves the reader at best just indifferent. The narration was at best mediocre. The narrator could not perform different parts well enough, especially male and accented parts.

The last part, though extremely slow, was thoughtful and poetic, but didn’t help the reader fall in love with the book all over again.
The large gaps in years between each individual part make the reader lose touch with the characters, and their much older versions rarely evoke the same emotions as their young and charming counterparts. The reader is never offered a closure about Jacko, Holly’s little brother, and though some events are finally explained, he’s not paid his due, being a silver thread running through the whole story.
So far, “Cloud Atlas” has been Mitchell’s crown jewel. Despite the mediocre “The Bone Clocks”, millions of loyal followers of Mitchell’s literary talent will be patiently waiting for his next book. Me included.

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