It's clever, funny, dark, and touching. It's Lemony Snicket and Roald Dahl and dare I say a touch of the ol' J.K. And it's over too soon! The Kneebone Boy straight charmed the crap out of me. I wanted it to be longer, or at least be the start of a series, but I believe it's just an awesome little standalone gem I'll have to reread soon and often.

This is the story of the three Hardscrabble siblings: Otto, Lucia, and Max. These kids are outcasts in their hometown of Little Tunks because their mother disappeared and the whole town suspects Otto killed her and their father buried her in the backyard. But no one really knows what happened to the mother. She may be dead. She may have been kidnapped. It's been long years since anyone's seen her and the Hardscrabbles have precious few memories of her.

Then one day their father has to go on one of his portrait-painting trips and leaves the kids with their cousin in London. Only it turns out their cousin isn't in London and they are stranded. Unable to reach their father, they decide to seek out their mysterious Great-Aunt Haddie in a town called Snoring-by-the-Sea. I will not give away any more plot, which is quite twisty, but I will go on a little about why I loved this so much.

First and foremost, the narration is outstanding. We're told in the beginning that one of the Hardscrabble siblings is writing the story, but can't say who it is: "They said it's because the story belongs to all three of us, and I suppose they're right, but it seems unfair since I'm doing all the work. No one can stop you from guessing though." It's pretty easy to guess who the narrator is, but it's also really fun that the story is told in both third and first person. It has great flow, but can be broken up by asides about the writing of the story itself (very [b:Series of Unfortunate Events|78411|The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1)|Lemony Snicket|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170942131s/78411.jpg|1069597]--if you didn't like those books, you probably won't like this). The asides are very funny and very meta. If I were more industrious I'd quote a long passage from page 87 that illustrates how great they are, but I'm not feeling industrious, so you're just going to have to read the book.

The relationship between the siblings is another of this book's strong suits. To me, it was so real. Each of the siblings' personalities seemed molded by their siblings. Otto doesn't speak, but communicates with a secret sign language he developed with Lucia. Max is just ten years old, but hyper-intelligent, so the very proud Lucia is often upstaged by him, which just makes her act even more haughty. They fight childishly. They bond touchingly. It's a dynamic that's familiar to most people, but not often captured so well in an adventure like this book.

One last compliment for Ms. Potter: I believe you are American, so bully for you for writing in so many cheeky Britishisms. I mean, I'm American too, so I can't truly say that you got them all right. But it sounded super awesomely British to me. The audio book could be great.

In the end, this book is about what all good adventure books are about: danger and discovery. And, as the narrator says, "Here is my most important message to you: All great adventures have moments that are really crap." Or, in a more philosophical vein: "You have to work really hard at being astonished by life."

One last thing: the cover art is perfect. Do you see how the cat has extra toes?

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This book was the greatest. It reminded me of lots of other books - it was a little Lemony Snicket-ish, a little Shirley Jackson-ish, and a little bit of other things, but it still stood on it's own two legs. The characters are clever and quirky, but the greatest thing about it is that it's not fantasy. As bizarre and unexpected as the story is, it's really perfectly realistic. You come to realize the bizarreness isn't just to be cute or entertaining, it's because... well, I can't say or I'd give it away, but all in all the ending is surprisingly moving and good. I'll have to remember to recommend it to fans of the Emily the Strange novels. ( )

The three Hardscrabble children, Otto, Lucia, and Max, live in the town of Little Trunks. For most of their lives they've been the "weird" children that everyone whispers about and no one wants to be friends with. Otto, the eldest Hardscrabble kid, began wearing a scarf on a daily basis after their mother disappeared. He also hasn't spoken a word aloud since then - instead, he invented a personal sign language that only Lucia knows fluently, Max can puzzle out, and their father can't hardly understand.

Lucia, the middle child, acts confident but is actually very lonely. Otto is her best and closest friend. Max, the youngest, is the most outgoing of the Hardscrabble children, but even his best efforts aren't enough to overcome the family's reputation and earn him a non-Hardscrabble friend. He's the most observant of the children, always carefully noting everything going on around him and thinking through what it all means.

The kids' father, Casper, paints deposed royalty. When he's suddenly called out to paint another portrait, he sends the children to stay with his cousin Angela in London. Unfortunately, Angela turns out to actually be on vacation elsewhere. The children really don't want to go back to Little Trunks, so they decide to go visit their Great-Aunt Haddie, who they've never met before. And so begins their adventure.

I had been wanting to read this for ages, almost entirely because I loved the cover artwork. I'm easily drawn in by illustrated covers. I knew very little about the story but assumed that it would have at least a few fantasy elements. This assumption was supported by the Goodreads users who tagged it as "Fantasy" and Potter's own writing, which kept hinting that fantastical things would happen. At the very least, there was supposed to be a ghost.

I'll just get this out of the way right now: I don't consider this to be a fantasy novel, and my expectation that it was probably hurt my opinion of the overall story. It's really more of a mixture of mystery and adventure.

The kids' desire to avoid going back to Little Trunks resulted in them accidentally investigating the mystery of their mother's disappearance. The way Potter wrote about Otto's quirks as being defense mechanisms was very intriguing and part of what kept me reading, even though the book's pacing and efforts at foreshadowing annoyed me. I also felt for Lucia, who both protected and depended upon Otto, and was grateful for Max, whose observations and deductions kept the story from lurching to a standstill.

The pacing, as I said, really didn't work for me. I was also a bit impatient with Potter's choice of narrator. The book was written as though it was a story being told by one of the Hardscrabble kids. The narrator never revealed their name, but various clues made it clear who it was. It was never clear to me why the author did things this way, and there were a few moments when I was distracted by thoughts of how surprisingly good this child seemed to be at guessing adults' ages. I don't know about you, but when I was as young as the Hardscrabble kids, my knowledge of adult ages was limited to "as old as my parents," "probably younger than my parents," and various levels of "pretty old."

It didn't take me too long to decide that I wasn't going to love this book, but, as the pieces of the Hardscrabble children's past started to come together, I did at least want to know how things would turn out. My first impression of the ending was that it was okay, but a bit dissatisfying. As I thought about it some more, however, I began to get angry.

First, what is up with stories in which parents lie to and essentially betray their children for years and who are then forgiven by their children after a few minutes of explanations and apologies? Casper let his kids think that their mother had abandoned them, or had maybe even been killed. Heck, what about the rumors that Otto had killed his own mother? By not telling the truth, Casper let those flourish. I wouldn't have blamed a single one of the Hardscrabble kids for crying and screaming at him, or refusing to talk to him ever again.

Second, the way Potter wrote about mental illness was crap. Casper told his children that he'd taken their mother to multiple places to try to get her some help "but she was miserable at all of them. They pumped her body full of medication." (272) So she was miserable at all these places, but supposedly not miserable while held captive in a castle-turned-mental-hospital, kept from her children, who even Casper admitted she probably still loved even if she didn't know who they were? And then there was Potter's way of writing about medication. There was no mention of side-effects or issues with finding the correct dosage. Instead, Potter made it seem like it was the very act of trying to medicate Tessa that was bad. So what did Casper do instead? He took her to a place where no apparent effort was made to treat Tessa at all.

The Kneebone Boy had some good points. I liked the Hardscrabble children, and I thought the castle Haddie was staying at was pretty cool, even though the people who built it were awful. However, it took way too long for the book's focus to become apparent, and the more I think about the ending the more awful it feels.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

A hard book to get into, with too many genre nuances it took too long for me to become engaged. However, I am a curious person and the Hardscrabble children’s characters intrigued me and kept me reading. I wanted to know what had become of the Hardscrabbles’ mother and why Otto (the eldest son was such a reclusive, oddball character than never spoke and had a scarf as a comforter.
Max the youngest appears to be the most logical (although a know-it-all) and escapes to sit on top of the roof to read and solve the problems of the world around him. Lucia is the middle child, a girl and has taken on the maternal role now that their mother has disappeared????? Lucia is the most confident of the three.
Otto is the oddball, he collects oddities (a cat with an extra leg – don’t quite know how this fits in the story), he never takes his scarf off and never talks (apparently he used to talk) preferring to communicate through Lucia using sign language or body language.
Caspar Hardscrabble (the father) is a travelling artist who paints portraits of unfortunate royalty from far away countries. He often is away and the children are looked after by a supposedly caring neighbor, Mrs Carnival (whom they dislike and she is not fond of them either). Sadly the Hardscrabble family are the talk of the town, the people of Little Tunks often gossip about Caspar’s frequent away trips, the unusual behaviors of the children and strange disappearance of the mother. When Caspar has to go away the children are not sent to Mrs. Carnival, but are sent to London to stay with their cousin Angela. When Angela is not there to meet them (she has gone away) the children have to find their way to another family great aunt, Hattie whose name they have heard mentioned (in riddles) as living at ‘Longing at Sea’.
This begins another adventure in the book with the introduction of a castle and a smaller replica folly castle etc. It is not until the end of the book that all of these nuances make sense and you realize ‘Of course’ now it makes sense, the nuances are symbolism. This book could create very good discussion around mental health issues affecting families, genetics and lifestyle. ( )

What a treat this book was. It had such a unique voice. ( )