Sarah's Reviews > The Kneebone Boy

** spoiler alert ** The cover and blurb for The Kneebone Boy promised PG-rated gothiness in the Lemony Snicket vein. Unfortunately, the actual book did not live up to its packaging.

Otto, Lucia, and Max Hardscrabble are outcasts in their small English community. Their father is an outcast, too, when he bothers coming home, but usually he's off taking portraits of foreign dignitaries. Meanwhile the house falls into disrepair, Otto hasn't spoken in eight years, Lucia sulks and tries to impress her English teacher, and Max tries in vain to bring home friends and fit into normal society.

One time, when their father leaves them with a babysitter they don't like, the kids take off for London instead, and briefly step into another dimension full of Spiderwick-style fae folk that is fascinating - and never seen or heard from again.

Their ill-informed quest then brings them to the seaside, where they meet their very young Great-Aunt Hattie, who lives in a giant play-castle, and an eccentric dude who runs the local taxidermy. Mildly entertaining adventures ensue during which Max is cute, Lucia is a brat, and Otto keeps his mysterious silence. Also, there is a cat. Yay cats.

Finally, just when things are starting to get interesting, their dad shows up and reveals that their mother isn't dead--she's just been passing herself off as a teenage boy in an insane asylum all these years. The End!

The tone of this book struck me, among many other reviewers, as Trying Way Too Hard to Be Quirky, which is always off-putting. It lacks the wit and layers of meaning one finds in Snicket, and is additionally far too shallow, unoriginal and nihilistic to be compared with The Chronicles of Narnia, The Secret Country trilogy, or even The Dark is Rising. Not to mention it could never compare to any of those in terms of plotting, world-building, character development, and overall craftsmanship.

Of the siblings, only Otto emerges as remotely interesting - perhaps because he's the only one who keeps his mouth shut. The big asylum reveal at the end is gratuitous shock value, and the author puts a strange emphasis on androgynous women who can pass for boys (in addition to the mum, there's Aunt Hattie and a few walk-on characters described thus. It reappeared enough that I figured it was social commentary of some sort, but it wound up being random in the end). Finally, it is very obvious that this is an American writer awkwardly appropriating British slang.

In all, not the worst book ever written but far from recommended.