Parental loss and abandonment are strong themes. Strong language includes 'bulls-t' and 's-t.' Older teens drink champagne, beer, and wine once each but not to excess. It’s 25 years tomorrow since The Bone People almost certainly the best selling New Zealand novel ever written was published. The Bone People is not always easy, but it’s absolutely worth the trouble. Lots of romantic tension and one kiss under covers with clothes on. There is some breath-taking work in setting: some of the passages that portray the ocean, the beach, and the country will stay with me for a long time, as will some oddities, like the loving detail in descriptions of fishing, food preparation, and painting. Lots of grotesque and macabre images and items, like a finger bone dipped in blood used as a key. Gore is mentioned but not described in detail.

A character bites her own mouth until she tastes blood to try and control her emotions. Blood, pain, and injuries are described in some detail. Violence is mostly in the fantasy realm, attacks from fantasy creatures describe biting, punching, ripping skin, cutting, beheading with swords, knives, and arrows. It takes place both in the modern United States and a fantasy realm based on the legends of King Arthur. Parents need to know that Silver in the Bone, by Alexandra Bracken, is a dark fantasy about a teen's search to break a curse on her brother. The size of an object is compared to a pack of cigarettes.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. Kerewin Holmes is a female (but quite unsexed) New Zealand hermit painter (she made what she needs to live by winning the lottery) whose self-sufficient, vaguely mystical rhythms of life are broken into when she discovers a small boy, Simon, on the beach near her hut, apparently. A 17-year-old brags that he can get into any bar in Boston. Older teens have champagne and beer in the real world once, and wine in the fantasy world once.

The bone people book review