The Bone Clocks

By: David Mitchell

Narrated by: Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, Steven Crossley, Laurel Lefkow, Anna Bentinck

Length: 24 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

David Mitchell is an eloquent conjurer of interconnected tales, a genre-bending daredevil, and a master prose stylist. His hypnotic new novel, The Bone Clocks, crackles with invention and wit - it is fiction at its most spellbinding and memorable.

Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people", Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life. For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics - and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly's life, affecting all the people Holly loves - even the ones who are not yet born. A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list - all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world.

From the medieval Swiss Alps to the 19th-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder. Rich with character and realms of possibility, The Bone Clocks is a kaleidoscopic novel that begs to be taken apart and put back together.

©2014 David Mitchell (P)2014 W.F. Howes

What a wonderful surprise

I have liked David Mitchell's books in the past, well I think I've only read 2, and his writing is gorgeous. But at times I found them a bit long and overwritten with too many characters, characters I didn't really care about. This book was nothing like those. completely different storyline than his past novels. I was wonderfully and unexpectedly surprised. I felt it was also somewhat reminiscent of Haruki Murakami. I'd recommend it to someone who enjoys the strangeness and feral quality of his stories.

Also, as an oncology nurse, I do love the idea of referring to humans as "bone clocks ". As sad as that might seem, it's completely spot on.

Felt unsure what it wanted to be

This book is part fantasy, part family drama, part cli-fi. I felt like it never committed to one genre. This was surely purposeful, but it felt wishy washy. The story spans time and characters, but I never got the payoff that I was hoping for.

Must have patience

The book is good, but never really becomes exciting. Also, the reader for Crispin Hershey's section was awful at doing other's voices, making characters you have already me sound ridiculous and out of character.

Not in the right category

What did you like best about The Bone Clocks? What did you like least?

If this was a imagining of a fictional character's biography only, it would be good. The few slips into a sci-fi world could be written off as delusion. Then I could have saved many hours of listening waiting for the sci-fi to kick in. Instead there are large areas of basic day to day life with a teaser to an underlying mystery. In the last third you get into the mystery and think finally there is the true story. But it is like someone just switches the channel just as it is getting good. At the end I was driving home from work and found myself yelling, "that's it!?!"

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

More of the sci-fi parts.

Which scene was your favorite?

I enjoyed the main character getting let in on the grand scheme of the secret society.

Did The Bone Clocks inspire you to do anything?

Write this review.

Good but lengthy

Concept good and interesting but went on and on!! The word smithing great at times even funny or ironic at times. Had to wait too long to find out interconnections and way too long for final end for Holly .

A winding story, threaded thinly

This was my second book by David Mitchell. The first, Cloud Atlas was amazing to me. This story in comparison was fine, though often I was asking "what's the point of this part?". The writing is very good (though too detailed at times - not sure if that is a perception from listening to the story than reading it ) and the preformed (and accents ) excellent. The overall story... seems now a bit more for teens. This is a first impression.

A brilliantly written string of novellas

If only David Mitchell could write plot as brilliantly as he developed characters and vignettes, or sustain a viewpoint through an entire novel, he'd be a literary hero. Alas, he can only write entrancing pops of person and situation, then drop the viewpoint and move on.
Not as philosophical as Cloud Atlas, nor as cohesive as "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoot," this new string of novellas is worth the listen.

loved it!

What a captivating story! I was sad when it was over. I want more! Excellent narration. VERY much worth your credit!

A must read!

I would love to know more about the character development or just more about the characters themselves.

Took a little while to get it.

Overall I like this book. At first I didn't quite get it and it ended up being more supernatural than the beginning leads you to believe. Parts of it were beautifully written, totally capturing my attention. I completely lost focus on other parts, realizing the story was playing but I wasn't really listening. That unevenness is the reason for the three stars on the story instead of four. The performance moved the entire production up to four stars though.

The book didn't leave me clamoring for another David Mitchell book but I'd probably read him again. The great parts of the story were enough to think I'd like his other books.