"The Dandelion Clock" by Guy Burt is an incredibly well-crafted, touching novel. Through a series of flashbacks it tells the tale of Alex, James, and Anna, their childhood together in Italy and the tragic outcome. Guy Burt has done an amazing job of conveying the beauty of the childrens' relationships and the bitterness in the ensuing tragedy. This book is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. I am eagerly looking forward to any future novels by Guy Burt.

For anyone looking for a book containing equal amounts of beauty and bittersweetness, this is the one for you. It tells the story of three English children(Alex, Jamie and Anna) growing up in Italy and particularly of one summer where they encounter a wounded man hiding in a nearby abandoned church and decide to take care of him. The story begins with Alex having become middle-aged and a fairly recognised painter and returning to Italy for a couple of weeks - supposedly to find the peace to decide the order of the different paintings for his next exhibition but really having come back to try and come to terms with how what happened that summer was able to have such an impact on his life.

It is through him and his recollections that we are taken back to that summer where the children are 11...12...13 years old and where, to use a cliché, their lives are changed forever.

The book is equal parts portrait of children and childhood and an example of how people that we come across in our lives have the possibility of affecting us in ways which we can't even imagine - in this case in ways which are equally tragic for all three children.

It's difficult to do the book justice without revealing too much of the story but I have to say that the ending is both the saddest and most beautiful piece of fiction I have ever read. I cried till my chest hurt because of its beauty and, if you believe you have an ample surply of kleenex, can only recommend that you read it as well. It is at times a story of great pain but within the pain lies the beauty.

The query on the back of the book and the intriguing cover worked as good bait, reeling me in to the pages that shaped Guy Burt's story. Initially, I thought the dialogue and meaningless Tarantino conversations between the characters were terribly written. There were two things that pushed me forward while reading this book, two things that kept me from throwing it into Clif's slush pile (a box of bad books in my closet that I will eventually get around to selling either on Ebay or Amazon). Number one, Mr. Burt was only eighteen when he wrote this book, so I HAD to cut him some slack as far as writing style. Number two, it's a short read, and I hate to quit a book once I've started it -- and guess what? I'm so glad that I didn't -- quit, that is, because in the end I find out that I've been tricked by Mr. Burt. His eighteen year old style of writing was merely a cloak, a disguise. The end of the book was a total 180, and it sent chills down my spine and I liked it... alot. I don't think this would have worked if the story would have been too much longer than it was, Although I wish the brilliance in the end would have dragged out a while longer. Bottom line, because it is such a short read, getting to the end is well worth the time and entertainment. I'm interested in how the movie will turn out. CW (the Basic Bottom line)

Having been anticipating the film version of this book for some time, I was pleasantly surprised to find it in the stacks of Barnes and Noble during a late-summer shopping trip. I read it in one sitting because I couldn't bear to put it down. The plot, briefly: a teenager conducting a 'life experiment' shuts five of his friends in a hole and just walks away. What happens next is the subject of this book. Burt is a diabolical mind, and he's created a story that will keep you thinking about it long after you've finished the volume. I would say that this is probably our generation's answer to Lord of the Flies, a fantastic horror story by William Golding. Though the chronological jumps can be a bit jarring and you don't finish the book feeling you know any of the charactesr, this is still one of the most inventive novels I've read in a long time.

The cover and premise of this book intrigued me. The comparison to "Lord of the Flies" convinced me to give it a shot. The fact that Guy Burt wrote this when he was merely eighteen adds a bit of morbid fascination to this sinister and twisting tale.

Now let's get this straight...this book never reaches the status of "Lord of the Flies." Where the classic book of human depravity painted a broad picture, "The Hole" paints a focused and limited picture. I don't believe the author attempts to make huge social statements, but I do believe he sets out to unsettle us. And he succeeds.

The story revolves around five friends who agree to be locked for three days in a forgotten hole, a sunken room of a British school. The sixth friend is supposed to come and release them after this "experiment with real life." What they don't realize is that the sixth friend has no such intention. In fact, he intends for them to face the brutal horror of survival. As the reader, we don't understand all the reasonings at first, but we do sense a creeping, claustrophobic doom. We wait for something horrible to happen. Here's the clincher, though...

The book's premise appears to promise more than it can deliver. Even in the last chapter, I wondered if I'd missed something. After following first and third person accounts and tape-recorded accounts, I wondered if the mental gymnastics were worth the final payoff. Then, with my interest still firmly intact, I read the epilogue. Ahh, yes...it was worth it. There's more here than meets the eye. The author, in his focused and limited picture, paints vividly. Only as we step away from "The Hole" do we realize how truly awful the painting is. The author only hints at most of the dark doings, thus succeeding in releasing the horrors of our own thoughts.

As I filled in the details from my own imagination, I realized that "The Hole" does succeed in showing the dark side of humanity. It does so, in part, by allowing us to dredge it up ourselves.

Now that's some good writing.