The Bone Clocks: Winner of the World Fantasy Award and Longlisted for the Booker and Folio Prizes
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i actually have so much rage for david mitchell and this book. it keeps you reading, i’ll give you that. the prose is addictive, and the plot gives you just enough nibbles to keep you wanting more, but never, never enough to be satisfied. this book has commitment issues. it can’t stick to a genre, can’t stick to a character, and each chapter has its own plot (and enough plot holes to fill a granny square). the bad thing about this is that every new chapter starts off awful. it’s irritating to start anew, each new protagonist is hateful, only if you keep reading for long enough you realise that actually, you like the new protagonist. and BOOM! chapter’s done, on to the next. now this would all be fine, and i could move past it, if it weren’t for the last fucking chapter. good almighty god was that a bag of shit. what’s good, is that we’re back with holly. that is the only good part. every other aspect of the last chapter feels like david mitchell is trying to personally punish you, as a reader, for sticking through the 500 pages of not-explaining-the-world-building by describing, in excruciating and distressing detail, the world once climate change finally gets us. it’s unnecessary, it adds nothing of value to the book, it made me cry for an entire evening - and the only way it ties into the whole atemporal plot is for marines to swoop in last-minute, in the most half-assed unlikely deus-ex-machina plot i’ve ever had the misfortune of reading. apart from all the above problems, other things i would like to gripe about: - mitchell likes showing off. so many passages, especially in ed’s and crispin hershey’s chapter, we’re completely fucking ununderstandable. and not in a “if i concentrate hard enough and out the work in, i can see the intelligence of this sentence, so good for you for being clevrerer than me” kind of way. oh no. in a “i’m going to write the most unintelligible sentence known to man and print it unedited to make my readers feel stupid” type of way. - what the fuck happened to crispin? why did that girl just shoot him?? that was SO random, and it ties in nowhere !! even if she was trying to expose the horologists or the anchorites, it’s a poorly explained and unnecessary plot point that leads to nothing of value all in all, fuck david mitchell for getting me invested in a 612 page book that just ended up making me feel miserable
2.5/5 Beautifully written yet there hasn't been as much going on as words were written. Plus I wanted to see a proper Hugo Lamb reunion in the last section of the book, so I am a little salty about it. Full review may or may not follow.
Fantastic story, even though the book had its lengths here and there. Really liked how the story takes you through past, present and future with different people's viewpoints while still always focusing around the main character.
Description
Posts
i actually have so much rage for david mitchell and this book. it keeps you reading, i’ll give you that. the prose is addictive, and the plot gives you just enough nibbles to keep you wanting more, but never, never enough to be satisfied. this book has commitment issues. it can’t stick to a genre, can’t stick to a character, and each chapter has its own plot (and enough plot holes to fill a granny square). the bad thing about this is that every new chapter starts off awful. it’s irritating to start anew, each new protagonist is hateful, only if you keep reading for long enough you realise that actually, you like the new protagonist. and BOOM! chapter’s done, on to the next. now this would all be fine, and i could move past it, if it weren’t for the last fucking chapter. good almighty god was that a bag of shit. what’s good, is that we’re back with holly. that is the only good part. every other aspect of the last chapter feels like david mitchell is trying to personally punish you, as a reader, for sticking through the 500 pages of not-explaining-the-world-building by describing, in excruciating and distressing detail, the world once climate change finally gets us. it’s unnecessary, it adds nothing of value to the book, it made me cry for an entire evening - and the only way it ties into the whole atemporal plot is for marines to swoop in last-minute, in the most half-assed unlikely deus-ex-machina plot i’ve ever had the misfortune of reading. apart from all the above problems, other things i would like to gripe about: - mitchell likes showing off. so many passages, especially in ed’s and crispin hershey’s chapter, we’re completely fucking ununderstandable. and not in a “if i concentrate hard enough and out the work in, i can see the intelligence of this sentence, so good for you for being clevrerer than me” kind of way. oh no. in a “i’m going to write the most unintelligible sentence known to man and print it unedited to make my readers feel stupid” type of way. - what the fuck happened to crispin? why did that girl just shoot him?? that was SO random, and it ties in nowhere !! even if she was trying to expose the horologists or the anchorites, it’s a poorly explained and unnecessary plot point that leads to nothing of value all in all, fuck david mitchell for getting me invested in a 612 page book that just ended up making me feel miserable
2.5/5 Beautifully written yet there hasn't been as much going on as words were written. Plus I wanted to see a proper Hugo Lamb reunion in the last section of the book, so I am a little salty about it. Full review may or may not follow.
Fantastic story, even though the book had its lengths here and there. Really liked how the story takes you through past, present and future with different people's viewpoints while still always focusing around the main character.