Rule of the Bone: A Novel

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Summary: rule of the bone
Review: Rule of the bone
by Russle Banks
young adult

The book is about a boy who smokes pot is about 15 who gets kicked out of is house for stealing his stepfathers coins. He moves in with one of his friends (who also does drugs)and lives with him for a wile. He goes home for christmas and his mom takes him back in to his house.
I think this book struck me the most because I liked the story line and the style of writting.
A draw back about the book that would make somebody not read is the drugs and word choise.
I liked this book because It was easy to follow and i like russle banks writting style

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Summary: A Book For the Non-Readers
Review: I'm not going to bother summarizing the plot. I'll leave that to the other reviewers. This is partly because I'm at a lack of words. I read "Rule of the Bone" a few years ago, when I was in 9th Grade. My teacher reccomended it as an independent reading (but still for school). My whole life, reading has been somewhat of a chore for me - I've grown to appreciate a few books, but I could never truly engage myself in literature as easily as the wonders of television or the internet (sound familiar?). Well, I found myself reading this book on my free time - I was getting ahead of my own schedule.

This book is fantastically easy reading - as it is written from the point of view of a fairly uneducated teenager. However, it is FAR from dull, seeing as the journeys he goes through are immense, and the lessons he learns are infinite. I cannot stress how much I dislike reading, yet how much I loved this book.

Bottom line - I give this book my highest reccomendation, since it is, to this day, the only real book I've grown to appreciate to the fullest. I hope to pursue a career in film-making, and if it hasn't been done already, I shall tackle the job of directing a movie based on this book. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but that basically sums up how this book has affected me.

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Summary: Lots of fun, a tasty page turner
Review: You wont learn the secrets of life out of this one,but it is a good, fun, book. Definitely worth reading. Dont be mislead by my 3 stars...I just like to leave a lot of room at the top. The Bone is entertaining and juicy. A very fun story line. When is the movie coming out? Give it a try.

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Summary: just plain ol' good...
Review: no tirade from me, there's already plenty of those. this is just a fantastic modern classic novel.

enjoy.

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Summary: Great Writing
Review: This is just a great story (a rebellious teenage boy trying to find himself). I loved all the characters (especially I-Man, the wonderful Jamaican man who takes Chappie under his wing) and the book was a real page turner. I have read many books by Russell Banks and am yet to find one that I didn't like. I recomend this one highly!

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Summary: Not the typical Banks Story, but very good writing
Review: This is the third book I have read by Russell Banks, the two previous were Affliction and Continental Drift. Based on those previous reads, I had Banks crowned as the voice of the f'd up white men in America, you know those disaffected working stiffs that are on the tail end of their dreams kinda thing. So I was actually afraid for the Bone.

When critics and some readers talk about a writer's skills they talk about things like "voice", "character debth", and plots and sub-plots and all that carrying on to try and determine why some books are better than others. Banks has already proven that he has the skill enough to make you care about characters that you really do not like (and I enjoy the hell outta that). Here he has you care for a boy that you can like, but not all the time. The kid does some screwed up things, and we know it is because some people screwed up the kid.

It comes out as a rather wonderful story, about how people deal with the family that you can not pick and the family you can. Bone was blessed by the family he picked up, not that he was all that good at picking mind you.

What I have really come to appreciate it he way that Banks deal with black people in his books. Not simply AA, but black people who are closer to their own roots. I like that he deals with the connection to the roots as he sees black people in ameriuca so far from their roots. But it is very nice, almost reverential, the way he deal with the black people of the Carribbean. It was very good and I highly reccomend it.

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Summary: Cool...
Review: I loved the way Russell Banks described Jamaica. It made me want to vist and it was very interesting. It's a must read. The ending could have been better, but enjoyed it. There were a lot of things that happened in the book to keep you wanting to read. Must Read.

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Summary: island and spirit
Review: This book tests you at the start with the harshness of a young boys life on the streets. As soon as you realize how great the kid is, however, you cant put down the book. cliche'? try to put it down. And an added bonus....a wise old rasta mon. Inspiring, full of laughter, and slightly heart wrenching. PLEASE READ THIS STORY.

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Summary: the coming-of-age book, well, comes of age
Review: For those who've been waiting for a rite-of-passage novel that's the equal of "Catcher in the Rye," this is it -- in fact, between you and me, Banks's version beats Salinger's.

The most impressive thing about ROTB is how Banks completely nails the first-person narrative of a disenfranchised 14-year-old punk, by taking the risk of writing the entire novel in run-on sentences and amazingly never exhausting the reader. Instead you get to sense the breathless rush of adolescent discovery that Chappie/Bone does. When Bone's naivete gets punctured by the violence and cruelty he experiences -- or occasionally commits -- the reader gets punctured too.

When talking about Pete Townshend's early work with the Who, somebody once said he was taking a baseball to his personal life, whacking it to hell, hoisting up the remains, and then turning it back on himself to examine why he did what he did, eventually becoming songs. That's exactly what Bone does in this book. In spite of the whirlwind plot and the remote locales Bone visits, Banks never once loses that center.

Very few books depict the kind of tragedy and heartbreak Bone experiences, yet leave the reader with a distant hope. But that's exactly what this book does. I hope in 20 years it attains the same fevered cult "Catcher in the Rye" now enjoys; it certainly deserves it. Anyone who was ever under 15 in the latter quarter of the 20th century should find something that resonates.

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Summary: smoke a J and read this book
Review: I am 16 years old and had to read rule of the bone for school and it is the only book that i have ever enjoyed reading for school.Rule is a great story about a punk kid that smokes sels and grows massive amounts of ERB. he gets stoned in almost every chapter and the first time he talks about getting lifted is on the first page. the storry does not revolve around gonga though it play a large rale in it. i lived reading the adventures that bone has and could really relate to the things that were happening to him. the story is filled with twists and turns and is never borring it keept me wanting to find out what was going to happen next. i recomend this book to all the stonerpunks out there and anyone els that just wants to read a good story.