The Lovely Bones: A Novel | Alice Sebold

The Lovely Bones: A Novel | Alice Sebold | Mixture of things both bitter and sweet

books:

The Lovely Bones: ...

	The Lovely Bones: A Novel Alice Sebold, 2002 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

A Great Surprise

I picked up this book in the summer for about 5 bucks on the clearance shelf at Waldenbooks. I had heard of it before.

Any aspiring author should read this book. It is beautifully crafted. The plot is complex. It is a page-turner that you can easily stay up all night to read. The best part of the book is how the author lets you know lots of follow-up details about the secondary characters. You have a few questions at the end, but most of them are answered.

Mixture of things both bitter and sweet

This book was a mixture of things both bitter and sweet. The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of a 14-year-old murder victim looking down from heaven. This isn't a 'who dunnit' mystery, however, since the identy of the murderer is given to us in the first chapter. Instead, the story is about how Susie Salmon's family and friends cope with her death and learn to move on.

From the gruesome details of Susie's murder to the touching family moments, this book was entertaining and somewhat moving.

for more information click here

Heaven and Loss

A vivacious, intelligent 14 year old girl is raped and murdered on her way home from school by a creepy neighbor. She dies and goes to heaven and recounts the tale from there. She watches her family struggling and trying to deal with the tragedy from the police investigation that immediately follows up until years afterwards when her siblings are grown up and their parents age. I feel that it started out great though rather harshly and boldly and I was not surprised to hear the author herself was a victim of rape. No-one else could have written a rape scene so vividly and painfully, in other words so well. The premise for heaven was interesting and different than anything else I have ever encountered but however, when the story shifts from the investigation and the narrator's struggle to adjust to life in heaven and the struggle on earth for those left behind and moves to a biography of her family, the book loses a lot of flavor and cohesion. However, all in all, it's a worthwhile read.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

products you might be interested in