Friday, May 27, 2011

Did Not Finish: Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs

After going through a Mary Higgins Clark phase a few years back, I've stuck mostly to children's/YA books for mysteries because, honestly, I think they're generally better written than the bestselling mysteries for adults, which also often include content that I don't...agree with. But I love the Bones TV series, so I picked this one up at a library sale because, at $3 a box of books, it wasn't going to cost me anything extra. I started reading it because I was looking for a fast, light read, as the other book I was reading at the time - Jamrach's Menagerie - was slow and boring for the first half of the novel (more on that in a later post).

Break No Bones is more well-written than I expected. Reichs' writing is hardly "literary" in the sense of "literary fiction," but she's better than ye old hack writer. What got me stuck was the slowness of the plot and all the extra stuff (mostly drama between Dr. Brennan and her estranged husband and the guy up in Canada that she likes). I blame my age for this; teenagers don't really enjoy reading about grown-up married drama. And while I could see glimpses of the show in the novel, they weren't enough to hold my attention long enough for me to enjoy the book as being connected to the TV program (and yes, I know that the books came before the show and it's not Reichs' fault that they're so different). I'll probably pick this up at a later date, but for now, I have tons of potentially better books on my to-be-read list that I'm moving on to.

1 comment:

  1. Maybe as you said,the relationship drama slowed things down.

    I was reading Bare Bones by Reichs. This one has short sentences (which I liked and) should help move me though quickly, but I haven't gone halfway yet. Gonna pick it up again to see if I have better luck.

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