Customer Reviews

The Bone Magician

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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).

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.

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

This story runs parallel with the action in the first book of the series The Black Book of Secrets and centres around the large city of Urbs Umida which Ludlow runs from in the 'Black Book', the putrifying river Foedus and the Nimble Finger Inn.
This book is better than the 'Black Book' in every way and that was a 5 star book. The presentation is much better. The extracts from the young heros journal are presented with a different, diary looking background instead of just the different font of the previous book and the story is stronger, with even better characters and a great murder mystery theme which is equally matched with some outstanding Dickensian 19th century type characters who are brilliantly brought to life.
The hero of this story is a young orphan boy named Pin, an innocent lad in a dangerous city, who is very similar to Ludlow in the first book. There is not much to link this book to the first book until the final few pages but the first line of Pin's father's confession does appear in the 'Black Book' and frogs and wooden legs do get mentions.
The themes in this book include raising the dead, phrenology (reading the bumps on peoples heads)and monsterous looking people in freak shows and because of some of the slightly gruesome scenes is best suited for the over 9's. There is nothing worse than you'd find in an episode of Dr Who though and I'd have no worries about my 9 year old reading it.
There is also a strong young female hero in this book - Juno who travels with her so called uncle, the bone magician, who performs magic bringing corpses to life so I think this book should appeal equally to young girls and boys.
Very highly recommended and I am looking forward to reading the next in the series, The Eyeball Collector.

So this book confused me. Or I guess you could say my reaction to it confused me. I listened to the audiobook and that may have been the problem. This book is basically the Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell for YA readers. It read the same way (minus the footnotes) and had many characters with different backstories and overlapping threads. I actually really liked it, but I think it was difficult to listen to. I really wish I would have read the paperback. I think I could have paid better attention and kept better track of all the different characters. But that's my issue. The book itself was intriguing and very well written. I found out right after I finished reading it though that this is the second book in the series!!! I hate when that happens. In this case, it isn't completely terrible though. F.E. Higgins says that her books are paraquels -- meant to be read alongside each other rather than before or after each other. The story contents of book one (The Black Book of Secrets) happen simultaneously to The Bone Magician staring different, but related characters. It could have been worse! I'll just read it next and I'm sure I'll survive.

My almost 11yo is a big science fiction/fantasy fan, but he doesn't like just anything. This and the other books in this series were big hits. He would read in any free moment till he finished each one.

When I opened the package to put this book into my classroom library, much to my surprise, it was not a complete book but two partial books in one. I would have liked to have known this since I was under the impression that this was a complete book. My students have been very disappointed since I was the one that made the other two books interesting to read.