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ria005 's review for:
The Bone People
by Keri Hulme
The characters in The Bone People are all outcasts. Kerewin Holmes is a painter that doesn't paint, who lives an isolated life in a tower. Simon is a mute boy who washed up on the shore of the West Coast of NZ following a shipwreck. He was found and adopted by Joe, who then lost his wife and biological child to the flu and proceeded to drink heavily and beat Simon. Kerewin has Joe and Simon enter her life when Simon breaks into her home. Chronicling of the complicated relationships that develop between the main cast is the most enjoyable part of this novel.
Some hefty issues are touched on, including displacement of Maori. At times Hulmes writing is disjointed and bordering on nonsense, but at other times her storytelling is to-the-point and vivid. I couldn't give this book higher than 3 stars because it is all over the show. Parts are great. Parts were a mix of wishy-washy magic and convenient happenings to drag the plot back on track. Tension and drama that built over the course of the novel towards what I assumed was going to be major plot points culminated in not much. It felt like all the elements of a potentially great novel were there, but some heavy editing was required to find them.
Some hefty issues are touched on, including displacement of Maori. At times Hulmes writing is disjointed and bordering on nonsense, but at other times her storytelling is to-the-point and vivid. I couldn't give this book higher than 3 stars because it is all over the show. Parts are great. Parts were a mix of wishy-washy magic and convenient happenings to drag the plot back on track. Tension and drama that built over the course of the novel towards what I assumed was going to be major plot points culminated in not much. It felt like all the elements of a potentially great novel were there, but some heavy editing was required to find them.