2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Let's be fair..., January 5, 2010
This review is from: The Bone Magician (Hardcover)
I admit that I sometimes determine whether or not to purchase a book by reading the reviews. So, when I saw that this book had only one "review" (a bad one) I decided that I have to put in my two cents.
I enjoyed reading this book, not as much as the
The Black Book of Secrets, by the same author, but more than
The Eyeball Collector, also by the same author. All three stories have a macabre feeling without getting too morbid.
I would definately recommend to my sixth-grade students, if they want to read a story that is creepy and strangely disturbing (Elephant Man-esque).
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a wonderfully dark story with beautiful characters, October 1, 2010
This review is from: The Bone Magician (Hardcover)
This book looked right up my alley and when I saw it I had to pick it up. It is the second book in the Tales from the Sinister City series by Higgins. I actually hadn't read the first book,
The Black Book of Secrets, and didn't realize this book was part of a series. The good thing is that you can still really enjoy The Bone Magician without having read the first book. Right now there are two more books in this series;
The Eyeball Collector and
The Lunatic's Curse. I really enjoyed this book, it had wonderful characters and a deliciously dark and sinister setting.
Pin is a boy who watches corpses for a living. It's not a bad job and it pays decent. With his mother dead and his father missing Pin is making due; living in a horribly dingy apartment in a city that is dark, foggy, and dangerous. Then while watching a corpse he is drugged by a couple of people who come in and raise the corpse to talk to it; thus he meets The Bone Magician and his young female assistant Juno. Outside of his job Pin has a mission, to prove that his father is not a murderer. Pin will get involved with a plethora of interesting characters along the way; The Bone Magician, Juno, the Silver Apple Killer (the cities requisite serial killer), and the horrible Gluttonous Beast to name a few.
This is a dark book, but it is deliciously so. The setting is foggy, Victorian, and darkly depressing...what I imagine the poorer parts of a city would have actually been like in this time frame. What really holds this book together are the strong flashes of wonderful kindness that are sprinkled through the darkness. For instance Pin, despite his horrible last year, is a surprisingly upstanding and responsible boy, with much depth to his character. Pin's employer is also surprisingly kind; it is like Pin knows how to bring out the best in the people he meets...he is a bright spot in a dark city.
There is a dark mystery mixed throughout, as the city tries to figure out the identity of the Silver Apple Killer. We see the story from many points of view: some parts are taken from Pin's Journal, some parts are from Pin's point of view, some from Juno's, some of the book is taken from newspapers, etc. I liked how all the miscellaneous sources worked well together to create an interesting story. I was actually impressed with the creativity and the craft it took to have all these journal entries, newspaper clippings, etc. brought together to makes this wonderful story.
Despite its darkness, the story is uplifting in the end. The book is creepy, but never really scary. It would be appropriate for middle grade and up. There is a lot of dealing with death in this book (since Pin does work for an undertaker) and a lot of descriptions of people living in abject poverty; but there isn't really anything too graphic or inappropriate.
Overall I really enjoyed this story. I love dark stories with a dark fairy tale feel to them that are full of mystery; I also love that the wonderful characters struggle against all odds to bring kindness and light into the dark world they live in. This book made me eager to pick up Higgins other Tales for the Sinister City books. If you are a fan of
The Last Apprentice (Revenge of the Witch) series by Joseph Delaney I think you would like this dark and atmospheric story. This story is a keeper for me and I hope to read it to my son one day soon.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Twist From The Dark Side, October 20, 2011
Deodonatus Snoad. Benedict Pantagus. Aluph Buncombe. Rudy Idolice. The gritty city of Urbs Umida has attracted no shortage of characters with odd names. The only things perhaps odder than their monikers are the professions they've chosen to pursue and the motivations that dictate their interactions with others.
At the center of this dark tableau is a young protagonist named Pin, a mortician's apprentice whose unsavory duties include keeping a three-day vigil over the recently departed to ensure that they are, in fact, dead as a doornail before they get buried. On one particular night, however, Pin's views about death are radically altered when he happens to witness the surrealistic machinations of a mysterious older man and his assistant, Juno, who bring a female corpse back to life for a few last words with her grief-stricken fiancé. Plucky Pin is as determined to expose the tricks behind the duo's charade as he is to clear the name of his missing father, a man whom the poison pen of Deodonatus Snoad has labeled as a serial killer.
Subplots featuring a caged and vicious creature called The Gluttonous Beast, a potato-throwing dwarf, and a charming man who believes that the shape of one's skull and the presence of bumps can predict criminal behavior give this fast-paced tale plenty of film adaptation potential.
Teens and tweens who have gravitated to the likes of Harry Potter will easily get caught up in the mystical elements, and Higgins does such an effective job at crafting realistic and compelling ambience that you can practically smell the stench of the River Foedus in which hapless victims draw their last breaths.
Christina Hamlett
Author of A Bel Air Lawyer in King Henry's Court
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