Rating: 
Summary: rapid descent into New Age gibberish
Review: I feel compelled to rescue any readers from the misleading plethora of 5 star ratings below. The first two thirds of this book are good (not great). The characters are intriguing, in part because of the exotic small town New Zealand locale, and the plot unfolds in a meandering pattern that leads the reader on while flirting with frustrating said reader.The last third of this book is absurdly bad in all senses. The plot becomes a ridiculous New-Age-tussle-with-cancer story. The style becomes a really horrible attempt at magic realism. The prose loses all discipline (and it never had much) and turns into some undergraduate writing seminar exercise in the use of the tangled metaphor coupled with the pointlessly histrionic use of adverbs and adjectives. Help! I only finished it because I'm stubborn. That this book won any kind of prize is a crime.
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting. Beautiful. Mystical.
Review: This book has haunted me since I stumbled actross it on a trip to New Zealand a decade ago. Thank you, Ms Hulme.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I checked this book out from a college library in, oh, 1990 and stayed up all night reading it. Wrote some really bad poetry afterwards (I was a freshman, cut me some slack). I loved it. Got my mother to teach it to her students. It's one of my favorite books ever. I remember being worried at the time that people would be turned off by their perceptions of child abuse -- I loved that she never treated it simply or as if it were black-and-white. Nothing is. The language and the texture were fantastic (though not your standard tradition-of-the-novel fare, and all the better for it) and it reminded me of a mixture of novel and poetry.
Rating:
Summary: honest and spiritual
Review: Keri it is some years since I read "Bone People" but some buttons have been pressed by scanning through the reviews just now. I loved your book for it's honest display of what we all as communities have a part in, however small. It touched me in a way that I can only describe as Spiritual. Thank you for the most thought provoking, compassionate, healing story which you have written with great aroha. It matters not if it is true in parts or if indeed it is your story. I personally feel humbled to have been given the opportunity to "see within" the story . I am reminded of a Maori quote I once read that I have never forgotten. he tipurangi (the growth of knowledge and understanding).
Rating:
Summary: Amazing. A truly GREAT book.
Review: It seems inconceivable to me that this book was rejected by so many publishers. I adored it, I was stunned by it. It is epic and moving and haunting, and I think I am a better person for reading it. I loved it so much that I am writing an undergraduate dissertation on it!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I am trying to find a hard cover copy of the book. Even a used one. Let me know where I can get one.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling book
Review: I read this book a few years ago and it has haunted me ever since. Its a book which I could empathise with which drew me close with the love the boy and his father share and which repelled me with the violence of their relationship,which is so truly depicted.For a long time I could not decide if I liked the book or was I scared of the feelings it arose in me . I would love to read it again but I haven't been able to get a copy.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book is so beautifully written that I have returned to it again and again. There is no part of this book that is not essential to the story. I am anxiously awaiting Hulme's next book.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest books ever written
Review: stunning, harrowing, gorgeous, profoundly disturbing, exquisite, wrenching, beautiful, horrible, awesome, innovative, ground-breaking, astoundingly insigntful, horrifically real, heartbreaking, joyous, devastating, redemptive, celebratory, mournful, everything that life in this world is
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book of all time
Review: I'm not much for reviewing, but this is by far my favorite book ever. Hulme's work has haunted me since I read it a year ago, and now I find myself returning to the bookstore week after week waiting for her to finish her new work. Please hurry!
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