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Sonja Arlow's Reviews > The Bone Clocks
The Bone Clocks
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by
DNF
I blame Crispin Hershey for my failure to finish this book.
The "former wild child of British Letters " choked the life out of this story. His over inflated ego and incessant navel-gazing broke the deal.
The sad fact is that I started out loving this story. I had some idea what to expect form David Mitchel as I have watched and really enjoyed the movie adaptation of Cloud Atlas.
The novel is structured as 6 interconnected stories with Holly Sykes as the common denominator.
The story starts with Holly as a rebellious teenager set in the 1980’s. All her life she has heard voices (or radio people as she calls them) but all she wants to do is shack up with her boyfriend Vinni and leave her sodding conservative parents behind. There are enough hints and clues about her and her little brother Jacko that gave the story an eerie Alice in Wonderland feel to it.
In the second story we meet Hugo Lamb, a snobbish Cambridge student during a ski holiday where he meets Holly working as a barmaid. I initially didn’t like him but quickly got swept up in the story and ended up really enjoying his story too.
But with each subsequent story we moved further and further away from Holly and focus on characters in her periphery. I could even tolerate Ed Brubeck, an adrenaline junky war journalist. But then Crispin Hershey came in and sucked all the joy out of my reading experience.
I kept on hoping that things would get better if I just can get past this horribly boring and superfluous character. But by the time I started the chapters on Marinus I realised that I had absolutely no interest anymore to finish.
I am not giving this 1 star as the audio narrators did an excellent job, just a pity that after Crispin the story held no more charm for me.
I blame Crispin Hershey for my failure to finish this book.
The "former wild child of British Letters " choked the life out of this story. His over inflated ego and incessant navel-gazing broke the deal.
The sad fact is that I started out loving this story. I had some idea what to expect form David Mitchel as I have watched and really enjoyed the movie adaptation of Cloud Atlas.
The novel is structured as 6 interconnected stories with Holly Sykes as the common denominator.
The story starts with Holly as a rebellious teenager set in the 1980’s. All her life she has heard voices (or radio people as she calls them) but all she wants to do is shack up with her boyfriend Vinni and leave her sodding conservative parents behind. There are enough hints and clues about her and her little brother Jacko that gave the story an eerie Alice in Wonderland feel to it.
In the second story we meet Hugo Lamb, a snobbish Cambridge student during a ski holiday where he meets Holly working as a barmaid. I initially didn’t like him but quickly got swept up in the story and ended up really enjoying his story too.
But with each subsequent story we moved further and further away from Holly and focus on characters in her periphery. I could even tolerate Ed Brubeck, an adrenaline junky war journalist. But then Crispin Hershey came in and sucked all the joy out of my reading experience.
I kept on hoping that things would get better if I just can get past this horribly boring and superfluous character. But by the time I started the chapters on Marinus I realised that I had absolutely no interest anymore to finish.
I am not giving this 1 star as the audio narrators did an excellent job, just a pity that after Crispin the story held no more charm for me.
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Reading Progress
October 5, 2014
– Shelved
October 5, 2014
– Shelved as:
to-read
August 22, 2016
–
Started Reading
August 22, 2016
– Shelved as:
audio-books
August 22, 2016
– Shelved as:
to-read
August 29, 2016
–
60.0%
"Meh, I am just over the halfway mark and my initial excitement has now morphed into unimpressed head shaking."
August 31, 2016
– Shelved as:
2016-read
August 31, 2016
–
Finished Reading
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by
Margitte
(new)
Aug 31, 2016 11:47PM
Isn't it sad when the story loses us? Really sad.
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So true, especially because the audio narrators were quite good but at the 2/3 mark I just felt absolutely no compulsion to find out what happened next.
There's a reason I haven't added this one..thanks for validating it, Sonja.
I agree with you Sonja, I also enjoyed this one in the beginning but then it lost me. At least you had the good sense to give up!
Jess, the fact that I knew I could return it and Audible would give me a full refund made the decision to stop so much easier. Jen, yea I cant recommend this with any enthusiasm, so many other books calling
Turns out we had very similar experiences with this one. In my mind, the part after Crispin Hershey featuring a kind of fantasy battle between those warring factions was even worse. Be glad you spared yourself that much. The very last chapter was better, I thought, but by then the early promise of the book was unrecoverable. Even with all that, I'm not giving up on Mitchell. Much of his other work is terrific. Sorry this one didn't work for you, but at least you got a great review out of it. :-)
Sorry this did not work out for you Sonja! Good that you gave up on this one. But thanks for helping me decide on this one. I've heard such raving things about it, I picked it up from the library and started it, and my interest faded. I figured I would go back to it. After reading what you have said, I think I'll pass.
I suspected as much, Steve and really couldn't see forcing myself to continue. And yes sometimes unsatisfactory reads make for fun reviews.PorshaJo glad I could help, you are not missing anything by giving this one a wide berth
Crispin Hershey is sucking all the joy out of me right now. I'm considering skipping the rest of his pov, because I loved the Holly part, and I keep hoping for more like that.
Robin wrote: "Crispin Hershey is sucking all the joy out of me right now. I'm considering skipping the rest of his pov, because I loved the Holly part, and I keep hoping for more like that."I feel your pain Robin, I can STILL remember how irritating the Crispin character was for me. If you stick with it I hope the story improves :-)
