The Bone People

How to describe how I feel about this book...well, it came on a three-day, 30-mile backpacking trip with me. And it is 445 pages long. So, I think the simple fact that I didn't grow to resent the extra weight it added to my pack speaks pretty well of it.

It's a Kiwi book, set on the South Island in the early 80s. Some aspects I really liked; Hulme sprinkles a lot of Maori through the book, plus a glossary, and it's always fun to get a sense of a completely different language. At her best, she has a real knack for capturing the complexity of people (the mute and abused six-year-old Simon, for example, is at once cuddle-worthy and infuriating). At her more amateurish, complexity gives way to moral yuckiness (Simon's abusive father is a sympathetic character some of the time, but just because separating children from their parents isn't always what's best doesn't render the father automatically forgivable).

So, didn't love it, but was certainly interested by it. Read if you're ever tramping (as the Kiwis say) around NZ.