Bridge of Clay

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Wonderful writing, and truly, it all does come together somehow, but I understand some readers don’t let it wash over them long enough for it to soak in. The writing alone is enough to keep me going. i'm REALLY big on books with themes of family and while that was the MAIN topic of the book, i couldn't even connect with the boys (i'll admit some parts were funny but they were too few and far between) bc THE WRITING WAS ALL OVER THE PLACE This is the first time in a while that I've actually not finished a book. I should mention that I was one of the few people who liked but didn't love The Book Thief, but I find it hard to believe that Bridge of Clay will be as well-loved as that book. More power to you if you can actually finish and enjoy it. Zusak is a writer of extraordinary empathy and he excels in his understanding of adolescent boys...in his portrayal of the gently traumatised Clay he has created a memorable character to savour... in

Markus Zusak makes his long-awaited return with a profoundly heartfelt and inventive novel about a family held together by stories, and a young life caught in the current: a boy in search of greatness, as a cure for a painful past.The crisp imagery of the prose descriptions is undermined by the self-congratulatory end-rhyming of the final two sentences. Zusak’s rhyming, here, is emblematic of a more general tendency to break every narrative into small paragraphs or sections, and to end each of these with an apparently telling or teasing line: “Until now”; “We loved what you did next”; “In months ahead, she would push too soon.” This sense of trying to intrigue the reader, to draw them through the narrative, begins to feel like a prolonged delay of information, and risks losing us before the stories of Zusak’s novel begin to fall into place. Bridge of Clay, as earlier in The Book Thief, Zusak has succeeded in creating a story so vibrant and so real that the reader feels enveloped by it. Zusak's empathy and love for this flawed world permeate his writing and make this new book shine.' The Australian Prescription: I can’t seem to recommend this for anyone in the time being. If you want a better story about 5 brothers which is more relatable and has great writing then I recommend Watching Glass Shatter by James Cudney! In front of me, there’s the old TW. Beyond it, a scratchy wooden tableland. There are mismatched salt and pepper shakers, and a company of stubborn toast crumbs. The light from the hall is yellow, the light in here is white. I sit and think and hit here. I punch and punch away. Writing is always difficult, but easier with something to say: Let me tell you about our brother. The fourth Dunbar boy named Clay. Everything happened to him. We were all of us changed through him.”

all of these things happen to a boy name clay - this is his story. and although this book is told by his brother, it is still a story about ‘the fourth dunbar brother. and how everything happened to him. and because of that, we were all of us changed through him.’ This is a story of love, heartbreak, togetherness, family, despair, life, death, forgiveness and reconciliation. A family saga without all the unnecessary words.

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After 11 or 12 years of waiting, you’d think that the author will write the next big thing. Unfortunately he wrote the next big disappointment and I fell from this Bridge of Clay into a sea of disappointment! In the two decades of his writing process, Zusak went through several changes and challenges with the novel. He stated in an interview with Publishers Weekly that the most difficult problem was finding the right narrator, and giving that narrator the right voice. For six years a character named Maggie was the narrator of the novel, but upon revision was completely scrapped. His breakthrough of the book came when he first decided to quit the book—wherein he realised that he would not have been happy if he had done so, and "just had to finish it". [9] Beautifully written and thought-provoking, Bridge of Clay will tug at your heartstrings; and at the essential core of the novel is the delightfully uplifting message that life tends to find a way to make things right in the end.” — New York Journal of Books A captivating book with a mighty, fearless heart, BRIDGE OF CLAY is filled with characters to believe in and care about … achingly moving, delightfully funny, and thoroughly uplifting.”—M. L. Stedman, bestselling author of The Light Between Oceans He is writing the story of his family from his own point of view (when he’s part of the action), but from an author’s (or omniscient narrator’s) point of view in all the scenes that took place before he was born or that were between other characters. I found it always easy to distinguish, and it made me feel he was acting as the family historian to whom everyone had entrusted their innermost thoughts.

She turned the knob to a shadowed dimness and sat on the stool at the piano. Slowly, her hands drifted, and genly, she pressed the high-pitched notes. She hit them soft but true and right, where she'd used the paint left over.Mystical and loaded with heart, it’s another gorgeous tearjerker from a rising master of them.” — Entertainment Weekly Markus Zusak is my all time favourite author and with Bridge of Clay he has just solidified that position further. I fell in love with his writing in The Book Thief and then The Messenger and now with Bridge of Clay. I always tell people that going into his book, don't expect them to be anything alike (except for extraordinary writing) because they are all so individual and different from each other, it's actually kind of amazing. Clay Dunbar – the fourth Dunbar boy, and main protagonist of the book. Characterised as a quiet and sensitive boy, who always had a love for storytelling and Michelangelo, and bears the weight of their mother's death the hardest.