Rating: 
Summary: I can't believe this was a top seller
Review: The idea of the story being told from the vantage point of a murder victim in heaven was very creative and the reason I bought the book. Unfortunately, that was the only positive about the it.As far as the "believability" of the book, I cannot agree more with the review from "Psychologist from Michigan". The characters and story in this book are pathetically unrealistic. I can't say this any stronger. As the book wore on, I kept shaking my head in frustration and looking to see how many pages I had left to endure and hoping for a good ending. Unfortunately, the frustration continued as the ending was another huge disappointment. To say the ending was anti-climatic and overly unbelievable is an understatement. I read 300 pages for that pile of trash ending? The author is someone who came up with a creative idea to write a book, but doesn't have the skill to write a good book. This was a big dissappointment and I do not recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to put down
Review: "My name was Salmon, like the fish: first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighbourhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer."
So begins 'The Lovely Bones.' It pulls you in with its opening paragraph, and doesn't let you go until the end.
I think the author was terribly brave to write such a story, and the way in which she executes it is amazing. Susie's take on heaven and all that can happen between heaven and earth seems to ring true; it's like it explains all the weird de ja vu and eerie happenings that happen on earth - the things we tend to push aside as 'coincidences'. This book is a kind of 'Sixth Sense' or 'The Others', only Susie doesn't get to stand on earth as a ghost; instead she looks down from heaven, yearning to be one of the living, to grow up and fall in love the way her friends and sister get to. In heaven, no moment on earth is taken for granted, and the experiences of a once-living fourteen-year-old Susie are held extra precious as there are no new earthly experiences to take away their magic. I recommend this book for its originality and for the moments that almost form a tear in your eye. Dad and Holiday are two of my favourite characters. Read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Evocative and Elegiac
Review: This is a profoundly resonant story for me, from the first flat recital by the narrator of her date of death, and age at the time, fourteen. She is the person who disappears, traces of whose body are found just before all hope of finding her alive vanishes. The national news picks it up now, linking our thoughts with the latest victims from Virginia to California. We are spectators - or even survivors- and we all have our voices. The child does not. Sebold speaks for the child, one girl. In heaven, she does not remain in that stasis we associate with a Platonic place of rest. She is watching. And she is growing. Because as every survivor knows, however scared you are, you are thinking of your family and how they will function after they know they have lost you. Susie Salmon cannot help her family at first, and she finds that she knew them a little less well than she thought. Just by observing them, she grows in understanding and perhaps in influence over their actions, as a kind of grace-bearer. Her death affects her school, her friends, the world. The ripples go far beyond the horrible moment it took to kill. And what of the murderer? He gains in skill and confidence, taking in just about everyone, the way such people do. His victim understands him better with time, but there is no forgiveness because he never repents, but keeps killing. It's a page-turner. In some ways, it reminds me of The Giver because of the fantastic premise. How much do you prepare a child to deal with the real threats posed by the abductors and killers? As much as you can. But relative strength being what it is, this is not always possible. For everyone who did not get away to swim another day, Susie Salmon speaks, confronting us with the very riddle of existence. Can she come back? Or, to paraphrase Emily of Our Town (a reference not quoted but mentioned in the book)- "Does anybody really live life while they're living it, every, every minute?" She wants desperately to have a life. Somehow, she does.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely As It Is.
Review: I hardly cry. At 'sob' movies such as 'Titanic' I didn't cry. I am a tough guy. However, after reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones: A Novel, I found myself crying. Crying at the unfairness that Susie Salmon ( as in fish ) faces. Watching how her family copes with her death. It got to the point that it became difficult to read through the tears, and I'm not exaggerating. The book begins innocently enough, as we read of her Susie got her place in heaven and how heaven is like. We watch how her family deals with her ordeal, and as with Susie, we watch her family and friends grow, we too watch her grow. As it starts out somehow grim, optimism soon paves new roads in the book, leaving you laughing and sobbing all at the same time. It was magical. After reading the book, I found myself somehow at a lost. It is a good thing. I had all these funny emotions of joy, sadness and anger running through me. It made me want to read the book again.
Rating:
Summary: Read it twice!
Review: Read this one twice. Once for yourself, and once for everyone that you've ever loved - those that you remember, and more importantly, those that you do not.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and engrossing
Review: I found this book to be of the best quality. It was well written and offered a grand scope of characters without maudlin sentiment. I would recommend it to anyone who really wants something that will reach out and grab you.
Rating:
Summary: The Lovely Bones By Alice Sebold
Review: In The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold transform into a world of a family dealing with incredible grief and how they try to go on with life. Alice also shows us in her wonderful book, the pains of growing up that most adults seem to forget. She gives us beautiful details without making the book seem long and tedious. Susie Salmon is a thirteen-year old girl who has been murdered and is in already in heaven. She watches from heaven, her loved ones back on earth. Everything she wants always appears in her heaven except what she really wants, to be back with people on Earth. Susie sees how her family is changing. Her sister growing up without her and enjoying all the things she wishes she could, first kiss and a forever love. She sees her little brother try to understand what really happened to his sister. She watches as her parents struggle to live their day to day life while dealing with their immense grief. In the end of the book, a miracle takes place that makes the readers sit back and really reflect on life. Sometimes we forget how truly lucky we are just to be alive but this story reminds us. It gives us hope that there really are miracles and that there really is such thing as love in the world. This story gives out a radiating light of optimism that together, we can all get through anything together.
When my friend first recommended that I read this book, I thought it would be just another sappy book with whiny characters and cliché lines. But it was not. This book is so remarkable because it manages to capture the real feeling of its characters. The author does not just scratch the surface but goes deep inside the characters personality and emotions. Susie is portrayed perfectly as a girl with a deep longing to be back with the people she loves. She loses herself in past memories from when she was alive and then craftily goes into the present time. This book goes makes its readers go through all the emotions, laughter, sadness, understanding, and pain. This is a book where at the end, you feel like you are a part of the family. The Salmon family becomes a part of you and you can not wait to turn the page to see what happens next. When you finished reading, you will want to keep it on your bookshelf as a reminder your journey into the middle of a strong family and their experiences.
Rating: 
Summary: Please stop ruining the plot
Review: I've only read the first couple of chapters, as I had heard so much about the book and wanted an idea of if I would enjoy it before I bought it. So far, I think the descriptions and writing are beautiful. I don't think it's unrealistic that people would act inconsistently, before or after the murder. They're supposed to be people, not perfectly logical robots. As to the argument about Susie wearing the childish hat her mother gave her being in conflict with her sophistication, that review wasn't paying attention. First of all, she says she doesn't wear the hat (it's in her pocket), even though it's cold, because it is too immature for her. Also, she contrasts her knowledgeable viewpoint from heaven with how naive she was before her murder. I can't speak for the rest of the book, but I thought those complaints were completely off base. Please keep in mind that reviews are not supposed to be synopses of the plot. Some of us might still want to read the book, after reading all the reviews.
Rating:
Summary: Boldness of the attack!
Review: As an often disappointed reader of modern fiction I can say this book was far from disappointing. The author launches into a tale that is both grim and tender with an amazing certainty. The prose is beautiful and the telling of the story is bold-- confident. There were some parts in the narrative that might be weaknesses, might be me. I never really understood Susie's heaven. It seemed melancholy and like a slow kind of torture. It was more like hell. You can see the ones you love, see their struggles more clearly than when you were alive but there is nothing you can do for them. The last hundred pages unraveled just a bit. I found myself wondering at all the far reaching threads that kept being pulled into the narrative. The ending had the feel that it was time to wrap things up. It didn't have the confidence or certainty of the first 200 pages. It's a subtle drop off, though. Overall, it's one heck of a read.
Rating:
Summary: an enthralling novel
Review: It took me just two days to read "the Lovely Bones". What an interesting concept . The story unravels from the victim's point of view. At times chilling and other times compassionate and even comical. It becomes easy to relate to Susie's grieving family and friends to understand their diverse reactions and mechanisms of coping after her death. A very unusual novel without the expected contrived ending. Alice Seckold leaves the reader satisfied with her eventual conclusion even though everything is not necessarily rounded off and tidied away.
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