The Lovely Bones | Alice Sebold | A heart wrenching story, told in a beautiful way.

The Lovely Bones | Alice Sebold | Excellent book

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The Lovely Bones

	The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold Amazon Remainders Account, 2004 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 2539 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue." The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife.Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons

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A heart wrenching story, told in a beautiful way.

I was given this book by a friend to read not long after it was released and because of certain events in my life it was a very difficult read to say the least. It took me over a month to finish it, but once I did I told my friend she wasn't getting it back. It was passed around a group of friends and family and everyone had their chance to read it. I appreciate Alice Sebold attempting to write a book with such a difficult story and doing an wonderful job in the process.

Excellent book

I loved this book, I couldn't put it down. It was so unique. The characters were so well developed. You would think the subject matter would be too sad to read, but it was so beautifully written, that you didn't really think of the sadness--instead you just rooted for the characters and found comfort in their happiness.

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Unique and moving

I find it incredible that a book concerning rape, murder, depression, and family disfunctionality could take such a sweet and innocent tone.

A young girl is kidnapped and killed, and spends the rest of the novel observing her grieving family and friends from the safe paradise of heaven.

Despite the fact that the narrator is actually dead, this is a book about life, all its various ups and downs and the nature of loss and love.

The story is complex and character-driven, and the writing is innocent and eloquent.

Sebold at her best

Let me start off by saying that this is a touching story despite the fact that it begins with the rape and dismemberment of a 14-year-old girl. The details of her death take up the first chapter, but the dead girl, Susie Salmon, then goes on to describe the aftermath of this tragedy and the way it affects her family. Sebold also goes into the head of the killer himself. The characterization of the killer is excellent. You don't get too much about his past, though you do get a sense of his relationship with his mother and how that affected him. More important, though, is how he is now. He could have been a caricature but, instead, Sebold made him seem like a real person.
But let's not deny it. The reason this book worked was because Susie's voice was just so compelling. I would follow her anywhere. The story itself was not very strong and it kind of fizzled out in the end.
For a while, though, I was enchanted by Susie and by the fresh perspective on a story that's been done before.
I felt that having the story be told from a ghost's point of view served two purposes. 1. It was a fresh way of handling the grieving process in a book. It was a vehicle to tell the story of a grieving family in a way that was different. 2. It allowed Sebold to explore the effects of such a tragedy on a young girl after she has progressed to a somewhat more enlightened stage. She still lingers behind in the world of the living but she is able to see things with a much different perspective than mortals would.
The main reason this gets four stars from me is because it is, for the most part, so beautifully written. Yes, at times it seems a bit indulgent. For example, I thought this one spiritual encounter near the end was just wrong on so many levels. But, overall, it's a very good book and I would recommend you give it a try, at the very least.

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