Reviews

Empire of Gut and Bone by M.T. Anderson

gmamartha's review against another edition

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2.0

Age 9-12 boys will adore this book! Gut and Bone indeed! Adventure in it's most disgusting bodily form will keep them reading.

cimorene1558's review against another edition

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2.0

Meh. I'm really loosing patience with this storyline, and I was really hoping it would be a trilogy, but no, it appears we have more books to go before it's over (and I don't think I'll be reading them/it). I quite liked the first book, the second was scary and somewhat intriguing, but this one lacks much of anything that appeals to me. It's kind of boring, a little gross (it's set almost entirely inside a possibly dead body, hence Gut and Bone), and I have little sympathy for any of the characters.

booksnorkel's review against another edition

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4.0

How can I explain this book? It's scary this entire series makes me tense and parts of each have made me have to put the book down breathe skip ahead and check to see if my favorite people are not dead. This book takes place in a rather claustrophobic setting the inside of a great beast. Brian and Gregory have gone through a portal to try to get help from the 'good' guys to stop the Thrusser horde from taking over the world and merging people with their homes. The help they find is apathetic and jaded descendants of gods who only want to have parties. The threat to the world is brought to the forefront with the cuts to two people left in the suburbs on earth that the thrusser are assimilating.

A book series for the 6th grader and up who is looking for something different and dark. Loves the unique and macabre I can't wait for the next book.

minty's review against another edition

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2.0

Talk about a convoluted, overly complicated "mystery" that isn't really all that interesting. Also how many more books will there be in this series?! The story is far from being over. I'm done reading them, though; it's just not good enough to keep going.

the_fabric_of_words's review against another edition

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4.0

And this book is delightfully gross. If Book 1 was a Creepy, Murderous Jumanji with robots, and Book 2 was a Ray Bradbury-esque Twilight Zone "suburb that will eat you," then this book can only be described as Bionicle, but inside a living (possibly -- probably? -- dead and decomposing) being. The inhabitants are elves and the creature in which they're living is so enormous they haven't explored it all. It's very gross, throughout, but in a good way (?).

The elfi-ish Norumbegans on which Brian (not necessarily Greg) has pinned all his hopes for stopping the Thusser invasion from spreading like a cancer through the suburbs of America have sunk to new lows.

When they "retreated" from Earth through the portal in the mountain, they stepped into ... something alive. It swallowed, numerous times, and destroyed or washed away the beginnings of their new civilization and city. They're left living in squalor and ramshackle buildings hastily carved out of tissue and constructed by the few automatons who weren't washed away. The remainder of the automatons deserted.

Brian, Greg and Kalgrash are rescued by an automaton, Dansig, who trades them to the Norumbegan court in exchange for the deactivated heads of 30 of his automaton comrades. Except the Norumbegans welch on the agreement, because they don't believe automatons are beings.

Then, the Regent to the royal Stub (it's way grosser than you're imagining) is murdered at court. Kalgrash and the boys' automaton rescuer are accused of the assassination. They're deactivated. Brian and Greg are quickly embroiled in court intrigue. Brian is determined to prove Kalgrash and Dansig innocent, get them reactivated and go in search of the means of stopping the Thusser invasion of Earth.

But even in the body of New Norumbega, the Thusser are planning and plotting and so are many, many individuals at court. And like in all the books, things -- specifically the disgusting Royal Stub -- are not what they seem.

Looking for more book suggestions for your 7th/8th grade classroom and students?

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shakespearesghost's review against another edition

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2.0

DNF - bored to tears on this. The first book in the series was awesome, but this is tedious. Got about 75% done and just couldn’t do it.
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