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

A near perfect listen.

What did you love best about The Bone Clocks?

It's no secret that David Mitchell is the king of showing us how we are all connected... across time, and distance. IMO, he does it here better than ever before. He helps me realize that every decision I make effects more than just myself. Also, EVERY narrator in this book is as close to perfect as they can be.

What did you like best about this story?

I LOVE that there is a wonderful hidden supernatural world happening in the background of so many "normal" lives. It makes the fantastic seem plausible. I also love the structure of the narrative. We are basically told the story of a character's entire life through the lives of the people around her. When I think of the work that goes into a David Mitchell book, it overwhelms me. He is a master.

Which scene was your favorite?

A wonderful scene when Hugo is first introduced to the Anchorites.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes... But, luckily it is longish so I was able to listen to it over days and days. I was very sorry when it ended.

Any additional comments?

This is one of those books that is sticking with me. I finished it weeks ago, but I still think about it. It is incredibly entertaining, but there is also so much more going on. I feel like I am a slightly better person for having listened to it.

Good and bad...Strong mix of both

This book could have been amazing - and parts of it were excellent- but other parts were equally bad and/or not what the story started out to be. Other reviewers have described how the story is broken into several parts, each with a different narrator and focus. I really liked the first part of the book where the narrator was teenage Holly who hears strange voices - the Radio people. This is the story I wanted to read, and pieces of that story played out in the rest of the book. But there were several sections of the book that didn’t belong - almost like a series of short stories instead of a compelling narrative about the character who sucked me into the story initially. There’s a section where Holly’s husband goes into great detail about his life as a war correspondent in the Middle east. I didn’t want to read a story about fighting in the Middle east and it was irrelevant to Holly’s original narrative. Then there was a truly awful section narrated by a dislikable author who had a tangential friendship with Holly. I had to fast forward to get through that section and think the book would be much better without it. The story of the “radio people” is picked up again by a different narrator but the original plot comes back in to focus and the story takes off again. And then for some perverse reason the author decided to finish off the book with a post apocalyptic depression and a grim tale of the fall of life as we know it - again, not the book I thought I was buying. The grim future part of story is neither imaginative nor unique. I skipped most of that part of the book as well and didn’t feel like I missed anything. There are plenty of books about war and the bleak future mankind is heading for. This book started out as an interesting story of something more unique- and I wish the author had been able to stick to that story. Disappointed...

Amazing character development with little benefit

This book had extremely well developed characters and an interesting story telling style. It tells the story from the point of view of several characters over a lifetime of one central character. The concept is good. The characters are well developed and mostly interesting. However, there are many times that this book just completely strayed away from the central theme.

Spoilers ahead...
There were hours spent on telling the story of Hugo who was a peripheral character. After his part of the story is done we never revisit him. He never matters again. Why did we just spend hours getting to know him when he will be forgotten by the writer? The same thing happens with Crispin, but with him it's more painful. Hours are spent on getting to know Crispin. He is not anyone I would spend five minutes with in the real world. He's a self absorbed boorish man that uses the word sodding way too often. Yet we get the joy of many hours with him and then once his story is over he never matters again either. I will say that we get to know the central character Holly very well and you will like her and feel for her.

I found myself waiting for this (audio)book to be over. It had some truly great parts. It was ultimately very uneven and very hard to stick with in parts.

The narration was excellent, especially the female characters. Moving in and out of British and Irish accents easily.

Works Hard to Make You Hate It

I wanted to like this book but really, really didn't. It's as if the author ensured that his characters, plot, and intersecting storylines would work in tandem to keep me vaguely irritated throughout, through bad choices, obvious choices and jarring changes in tone. By the end, I was racing to finish the damned thing, if only to get it over with. In the audio format, I really enjoyed the performances but none of the characters. Thank God it's finally done.

Well-written episodes, but too disjointed

Would you try another book from David Mitchell and/or the narrators?

I would try another book from the narrators - they were wonderful.

I will likely try another from David Mitchell, but after a prolonged break; and I will avoid multi-character, multiple-thread tomes.

Which scene was your favorite?

I really enjoyed the section with Holly Sykes as a teenager. The writing "sounded" true, and the narration was dead-on.

Any additional comments?

Each individual section was well-written, but the book was ultimately frustrating; Mr. Mitchell never really drew all the disparate sections together satisfactorily enough to justify the time spent building each character.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW

Of particular note - Ed Brubek and Crispin Hershey. I kept waiting for their story lines to circle back around and materially affect the narrative. I was forced to the conclusion that the story could have concluded exactly as it had, even without their presence in the book (with the obvious exception of Ed and Holly's daughter). Crispin especially was problematic; he lived, he died, but he had no effect on Holly's story.

I understand that this book is an attempt at mixing "literary" with genre writing, and Mr. Mitchell's mastery of his craft as a writer is obvious. Which is why this one is so frustrating - so much skill, leading in the end to a very tepid conclusion.

Wonderful ride through the past and future

The story was engaging and thought provoking. The narration was fantastic. The pace would slow down at times and it was simply intoxicating to listen to the perfect voices reading to me. The author writes beautiful with clear descriptions and skillful metaphors. The main characters are believable and I found myself caring deeply about them. Now that I've finished the audiobook I miss them. A book doesn't get much better than that!

Will be a classic tale of life, hope and love.

The spoken voices are great, the story is excellently done. Characters are loveable, there is something in the story that will stay with everyone.

A literary time machine

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Bone Clocks?

One of my favorite parts was when Holly was finding her way out of the labyrinth. I was also really interested in the final story where there were mentions of what has become of Holly's world in the future.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

I loved all of the narrators. There were so many different characters, various accents and backgrounds, but I felt that each narrator did a wonderful job of representing everyone and bringing you into their time, their world, and their story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Both! I've listened to this book a lot while at work or driving, and I came to the end while sitting at my desk and had to do my best not to cry. Listening to Holly's life and interactions in all of these different places, times and circumstances caused me to think back on my own past and to imagine the future.

Any additional comments?

The Bone Clocks is a beautifully written book. It can be confusing at times because just as you really start to get into one story and you begin to feel that you want to stay a while, you get tossed into another world and begin a new story. I thought that the ending would be.... I don't know, bigger, I guess. After all of the stories and worlds that you've just gone through, as this is a labyrinth of a book, there's just this sort of simple and lovely ending that wasn't as tied in with all of the previous stories and characters as much as I'd expected it would be. I really did like it though, it was a sort of a happy ending.

My First David Mitchell Novel & I Loved it!

What other book might you compare The Bone Clocks to and why?

Honestly this book was so unique to anything else I've read I have to put it in a category of its own.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

My favourite character was the first narrator who played the young Holly because she very much embodied the character and her performance felt natural.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Being 24.5 hours that would have been quite a stretch, however, I would suggest listening to it without long breaks as there are many details to the story and I found that each time I came back to the story after a few days I needed a recap.

Any additional comments?

I love to read but struggle when listening to audio books because I zone out too easily. This was the first audio book I tried in which I hadn't read the physical book beforehand. Though in retrospect, I perhaps picked a complex story for this experiment, I was hooked by this book and can't wait to read (or listen to) more of David Mitchell's writing!

Great book, but performance needs a director

Accents matter in performance, and the ones in this performance are shockingly inconsistent, cringe-worthily incorrect, and sadly distracting. This book deserves so much better.