Review: The Bone Clocks

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Similar to Cloud Atlas in that the story is split across 6 different narrators, and yet despite the plots being more interconnected in order to tell 1 larger story, somehow thematically the result feels a bit less than the sum of its parts. Each individual section feels like it could be its own novel in style and substance, except that as soon as a given subpart feel about to come into its own, the novel moves on to the next story. So basically they all feel underdeveloped.

Part 1 was where I felt most invested initially due to the way it built up intrigue towards the bigger picture. There were some scenes where I remembered thinking "I would love to see a film version of this"; they felt familiar in ways I've seen from a good supernatural thriller that knows how to pull you in.

People say the fantasy aspect in part 5 feels contrived. Personally, I was engrossed despite it also feeling underwritten-- like it had climaxes that felt unearned because we wasted time on side plots and characters and digressing genres in parts 3-4 that should've been spent building more up to this (1 and to some extent 2 at least did a decent job). I would've preferred interspersed moments with the Anchorites and Horologists more directly involved with the narrators than the detached appearances we actually got: casual interviews that the narrators themselves proceed to immediately forget for story reasons.

All of that said, I still enjoyed each part for what they were and got pretty invested every time despite the lurking lack of cohesion, so it wasn't entirely for naught.

Ultimately I'm looking forward to more stories in the Mitchell-verse after The Bone Clocks. Between this and Jacob de Zoet I've been pretty enthralled so far and like seeing how all the connections play out between books. Really looking forward to the Hugo Lamb related one coming next year. It's not often I get to enjoy reading from the perspective of an asshole, and I felt I needed more of him in this book.