I liked Kathy Reichs' Break No Bones much better than I thought I would. The book is part of America's current love affair with forensic science; in fact the protagonist in Break No Bones, Temperance Brennan--love that name!—-is the main character in TV's Bones. The love affair, however, is one in which I do not share. Thus, I did not expect to enjoy Break No Bones, and I admit to skimming the paragraphs that had extensive descriptions of the bodies and what each particular meant. But I can't deny the book some very strong plusses. Specifically:
1) Ms Reich has some of the best chapter-ending cliffhangers that I've encountered since, possibly, the Nancy Drew series. I can't count the number of times I'd be stopping at the end of a chapter and simply had to read the first paragraph of the next one to see what was going to happen. That's writing I enjoy.
2) I quickly identified with the protagonist. "Some student's boom-box pounded out a tune I didn't recognize by a group whose name I didn't know and wouldn't remember if told. (page 5) Temperance and I bonded.
3) Occasionally I ran across a really well written sentence. "Silence roared between us." (page 169) Few words, great image. Can't get any better than that, IMHO.
4) Guess Ms Reich goes into the group of writers whose details I'll trust. At one point a character says, "Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the hell that has crushed it." (page 185) She attributes the line to Mark Twain, but it didn't sound all that Twainish to me. Off to google I went. Yep. He wrote it. Now I wonder where. Clicked through one google page, but a specific source was not given. Anyone out there know?
I do have to admit to one of those niggling, I-can't-believe-I'm-this-picky moments. Tempe and her boyfriend have an argument and talk it out. "Startovers?" he asks. "Ollie ocean free," she replies. (page 173) Ollie ocean free? What I remember is "Ollie ollie oxen free." Back to google. Mine was there, and I actually found "Ollie ollie ocean free" as part of a song called "The Best Is Yet to Come" by Dennis DeYoung. So I'll acknowledge she's more right than I thought she was, but she's still missing one "Ollie."
Will I read any other Temperance books by Reich? Probably—-but I have my up-and-coming barnesandnoble.com order to read through first. Will I start watching Bones ? Nope.
Last edited by humphreysmar; 06/30/07 06:17 PM.
