Courtesy of my friendly postman, the package containing this book landed on my doorstep just over a week ago. As I held it in my hands, my first thought was "wow, what a beautiful book!". My second was "what an incredibly heavy, tomb of a book!". With it's intriguing title and a blurb which hearkened to my love of the genre magic realism, I couldn't wait to dive right in. I'd been reading for a good half-hour when I paused for breath and realised the name of the author. David Mitchell - wasn't that the man who wrote Cloud Atlas, a novel I'd borrowed from the library a few months before, soon to be returned as after less than one chapter the story just didn't click enough for me to continue reading. In contradiction t that experience, The Bone Clocks had me gripped and hungry to read on right from the very start. Had I more free time in my days I would have gladly devoured the (close to 600 page) novel in a single sitting. The story was magnificent, of the type one yearns to consume but is saddened once complete wishing for the plot to continue and for the characters to linger on a little longer. There are, of course, some elements which make this book imperfect. I had initially considered giving The Bone Clocks four stars, with that single loss of one due to the overly-long, drawn (and sometimes dragged) out plot lines; threads of story which I'd thought might be important, yet were dismissed. As I sat at my computer to write this review, however, it occurred to me that these flaws did not diminish my enjoyment of The Bone Clocks enough to merit a mere four-star review. I can't help but wonder if the inclusion of seemingly-lengthy sections only served to draw me in, and those story threads might have become more prominent had the novel separated into a two (or possibly, three) volume set... So five stars it is, and quite rightly so. If you're debating whether or not to shell out for this volume please allow my opinion to sway you. Buy it, read and enjoy it. I guarantee you'll not be able to stop thinking about it once you're done!

Some time ago I picked up David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and, to my slight shame, it is still on the ‘to-read’ pile teetering by my bedside. And moving down the pile as more lovely new books are added to the top. I had read and enjoyed other books by Mitchell – Black Swan Green was like a literary Adrian Mole with a seam of bittersweet darkness and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was a meticulously researched historical novel set in late 18th Century Japan – but I just couldn’t cope with the idea of the nested stories. In fact I gave up just as the first part ended, rather abruptly, and the second began thinking that I just didn’t have time to work out what was going on. I did, therefore, approach the Bone Clocks with some trepidation – since David Mitchell seems to be a different author with every book he writes which one would he be this time? As it turns out in this book, Mitchell manages to blend all of his previous author personas into one. The plot is, to say the least, quite complex and I won’t even try to explain it but it starts in 1984 as a fairly straightforward contemporary novel. As you move through the book, however, other elements come to the fore. The final section is set in a bleak future which would sit well in any good postapocalyptic dystopia and the central section is the kind of complex conspiracy-based near sci-fi novel which Dan Brown could only dream of being able to write. And the whole is based on a premise of time-travel which would be good enough for the average Doctor Who fan. Add to this the fact that this is a wonderfully well-written book – it is on the Booker Prize long list after all – and one which it is an absolute pleasure to read. All human emotion seems to be there at some point, beginning with the heroine, Holly Sykes, and her heartbreaking discovery of the fickleness of both men and best friends yet it is also, in parts, laugh out loud funny. And, as if it were not clever enough without, Mitchell even manages to drop references to characters and events from his previous works into the story without rocking the storytelling boat. This book, for me, will hopefully end up on the Booker Shortlist – although I am too torn by how much I enjoyed We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves to know whether I want it to win. And, who knows, it may even have persuaded me to pick Cloud Atlas up and give it a second chance…

I was sent my copy by Waterstones to review before it was published because I had won a competition. Well lets just say I received it on the 30th of August 2014 and it was released into stores on the 2nd of September. It's just short of 600 pages long... No way could I have read that or even skim read it in those few days. Anyway in the end it took me a few months to read it because it is such a dense book not just in number of pages but story too. Apparently it shares a few similarities to one of David Mitchell's other books, the prize winning Cloud Atlas but I haven't read that so cannot compare. However I was blown away by how clever he is at writing. The technique of having this one main character (Holly Sykes) reappearing in every section of the book through other characters. She was more often than not just a small background character yet you still followed her life from age of 16 all the way to her 70's. It was brilliantly written and I have a lot of respect for this book. The storyline is tricky. The book is split into 6 sections - 6 different stages of Holly's life. Each one is interesting and engaging but there appears to be no link of the plot between them - well at least for the first 4/5. These sections are where you have to show perseverance and just read. Get on with it. 'Cause it is one hell of an ending. It is as if the first 4 and a bit sections (all 380 pages) are one big climax. And once you reach the very end of the climax you won't be disappointed. Throughout the book references are made relating back to previous sections, be that characters, objects or places. This is where you need a good memory or you read the whole book a lot quicker than I did! Just a quick side note I would recommend buying the copy of the book with the cover by Neal Murren and published by Sceptre (the black one covered in random objects). This cover isn't just beautiful but I found it really added something to the novel as it turned into a detective game of linking the pictures on the cover with different parts of the story. Would recommend this book to certain friends and family but I realise it's not for everyone. Some don't have the time to read a book like this or they prefer something more lighthearted (the opposite of The Bone Clocks). If you have the time and effort it's definitely worth a read.

I found this book a very odd collection of stories that seemed forced together by the strangest of plot lines. The seperate sections were engrossing at times, and as short stories I found them very enjoyable reading. Where the book failed to hit home for me is in the way the stories were brought together. I like a variety of fiction, including science fiction and fantasy, as well as more mainstream genres. This book fitted in none comfortably, and I found the mix very difficult to enjoy. Decidedly unexpected and not always in an enjoyable way. A decidedly mixed bag of a book.

As a fan of cloud atlas I was really excited about reading this book, but it was frankly an utter disappointment. The first 100 pages of the book, don't get me wrong, were enthralling but really after that you could skip to around page 400 and still know what was going on, because up to that not much was. I understand that the author was trying to introduce new characters and subplots but I fail to see how over 50 pages of a side character in the pub with his friends does this. Maybe if you have lower expectations you will enjoy this book more than I did.