Rating: 
Summary: A different perspective:
Review: To be honest, I do not read a lot of fiction books. Not that I don't like them, I just rarely have the time and there are so many to choose from....however, this is one I did buy and read after hearing so much about it. I enjoyed the book, and thought the perspective (the dead girl, Susie) was a unique one. Though not "all enthralling", I thought the book was an "easy read" and it kept my interest -- learning of the changes, problems, and healing the family and others go through over the years. On the other hand, without giving anything away, the ending was a little disappointing to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: It took me a while to get into the story, but once I did I couldn't put it down. The ending was breathtaking and I couldn't get the story out of my mind. To believe in something so much that it can come true was incredible.
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Summary: What are Sebold's characters doing?
Review: I wanted to love this book. Sebold's characters do things that literally make no sense. The surviving sister is shaving her legs for the first time and her dad comes into the bathroom while she's doing it and stays to talk with her. Am I supposed to believe that took place? This scene as written is just one that needs a re-write. I could not believe the preposterous situations Sebold wrote her characters into.
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Summary: Just like Halloween:Scary and Sweet
Review: I first came across this book here in my recommendations list. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who was willing to lend it to me.
I began reading during my lunch period and couldn't stop. Susie Salmon's story grabbed me and carried me along for a ride like no other. The victim of a sadistic serial killer, Susie tells us her story from heaven. We see her family try and cope with the loss. All you want to do when you read it is to reach out and help them, tell them that she's okay. For me, that was part of the appeal. The reader was in Susie's place.
On the whole I felt it was a story of hope and triumph. Of course they had trials along the way, but in the end they came out okay. The final scene of her killer is a great emotional payoff.
I highly recommend this book if you enjoy crime stories. I don't recommend this book for parents of young girls. Certain parts may make them angry. I know my mother didn't want to read it because of that.
Give it a try and maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
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Summary: Why is "The Lovely Bones" a mega-bestseller?
Review: On August 14, 2002, I attended an Alice Sebold reading. As a journalist, I'm a cynic. I've only read about five novels since 1978. Most fiction involves less research and "rules" than non-fiction.Yet Sebold spent five years writing "The Lovely Bones." She didn't intend it to be her Great American Novel (awful cliché), a handbook about managing grief. But it sold more than one million copies in less than two months. Why? On May 8, 1981, Alice Sebold was raped, an incident that nearly destroyed her. She wrote an explicit and shocking book about it called "Lucky." It was this knowledge, as a non-fiction reader, and not hype or current events, that drew me to "The Lovely Bones." You may not have to know this about Sebold. But if you do, what she writes in "The Lovely Bones" assumes credibility, even if you're shaking your head in bewilderment, having trouble "suspending" disbelief. Hype" is a fashionably pessimistic word being used with excess to leverage what in my view are elitist comments against this book. "Hype" is a product of marketing with little relevance to quality. I agree with whomever said the following: People who give into "hype" expecting a seismic shift in their lives before turning to "page one," are doomed to disappointment. Hype doesn't give a book "legs." Word-of-mouth does. Narrating from the dead, as Susie Salmon does in "The Lovely Bones," isn't new. In the shorthand of cinema, you can quickly point to "D.O.A. (1950)," "Sunset Boulevard (1950) and "American Beauty (1999)." She may seem wiser beyond her "years," but it isn't critical to separate adolescent vs. adult narration. "Real time" exists for the living. Susie's dead. In "The Lovely Bones," the only thing that matters is what remains in memory. We question what we can't see, yet invisible things like oxygen, love, hate, lust, sorrow and hope are undeniable. After people die, we hear their voices, we remember their touch and the way they look. They're in the next room, watching TV, reading, whatever. Sebold captures our obsession, our "presence of mind" about the dead. This obviously resonates with people, many without the time to read 10 books per year. To denigrate fans of this book smacks of unnecessary snobbery that promotes literary "class distinctions." Conversely, sophisticated readers raise valid criticisms that wouldn't be as intense if they read the "NC-17" horrors of "Lucky." Sebold creates a haunting tone, absent of shrillness or clinically described violence. A "quick read" is not synonymous with shallowness. Expressing the intangible with sentences 10-25 words in length is near impossible. But Sebold's ability to impart abstract thoughts into simple sentences can't be dismissed. This is not a murder mystery. If it was, it'd be ordinary. This is a well-crafted, admittedly broad-brush story about family connections that pushes the thriller into the back seat. Splitting hairs about the plausibility of character motivations misses the big picture of "The Lovely Bones." This is not about listing minutiae of character traits. This is an unconventional novel. Perhaps this is why disappointed readers keep using words like "overrated" or phrases like, "doesn't live up to the hype." They're comfortable with authors requiring more words leading toward a revelation that feels closer to irony and "truth" than uplift. Hence, what's "familiar" seems trite. But Sebold isn't trite. We demand logical human behavior, but there's a randomness about everything that lies ahead. Wry observations bring the ordinary to the surface without, in most cases, pretentiousness. Yes, Sebold is a poet. In real life. And accusations of peddling cheap sentiment ring false because she draws upon her past to conjure up spare, abstract subtext and expressions to carry her tale. She succeeds using observational symbolism without wielding a preachy sledgehammer. Looking for religious dogma in heaven? Forget it. To Susie, "heaven" is just a shorthand for where she "is." It could be anything. Sebold's idea is that the dead do more than just "think." There are reasons why they suddenly seem near, then disappear. She told ABC News that she doesn't think too much about heaven. But she obviously thinks a lot about the dead, especially victims of violence. Some complain her characters are "caricatures." Composites of traits we've seen in friends and ourselves makes a concept less believable? Susie's "voice," regardless of age, represents her view, however subjectively precocious, illogical or formulaic. Only one chapter goes off the tracks, proffering an unnecessary scene that disrupts an otherwise fine narrative. Is this a book for the ages? Maybe, maybe not. But I'm disturbed that a "commercial" success, even unexpected, is disproportionately punished with contempt in forums, unworthy of being labeled a "literary success." If the masses like it, hype is responsible and it must be suspect, despite glowing reviews from respected critics, many with advanced degrees in English and comparative literature. For me, a non-fiction reader, the restrained poignancy of Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" is a surprise in the aftermath of her uncensored and harrowing memoir, "Lucky." In the hands of any writer bereft of real-life misfortune, concepts about death in a fictional tale, wouldn't have worked. It's impossible for me to ignore the author's history. Yet the success of "The Lovely Bones" proves it doesn't matter. However some feel undeserved -- there's no doubt the legacy created by Sebold's non-fiction "Lucky" and the fictional "The Lovely Bones" -- will remain preserved AND inextricably linked: If life is defined by only what we see, our dead remain in the past. But if life is defined by our intermittent recognition of their invisible "presence," they remain eternal.
Rating:
Summary: Better than expected
Review: I didn't plan on reading this book because of all the hype around it, but I skimmed over the first chapter and haven't stopped. Perhaps it's a little more compelling because the Everytown, USA Susie's story is set in is filled with the names of places I knew growing up.
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Summary: One of the Best I've Read - More Please
Review: This book envokes many different emotions that a person who has never lost someone, my have never felt before. I cried, laughted and was outraged from one page to another. The story is one of a typical family that goes through the loss of a daughter and sister. The book reads quite quickly and the storytelling makes you wonder if Alice Sebold is sitting next to you telling you this amazing tale. Instead of have a reader and author relationship, it seemed more like old friends. The character of Susie was well crafted and I found myself drawn to the book to find out, not what was going to happen next, but how this family was going to make it through the day. I recommend this book highly. I will be waiting patiently for Alice Sebold to write another book. This book was one of the best I've read.
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Summary: For first fiction novel this is brilliant
Review: As a sister of a surviving sexual assault victim I have to say the main theme of the story,how a family survives the rape and death of a child, is probably the truest I have read. Although the subplots are occasionally unsatisfying, the frustration, disallusionment and sorrow felt by Susie's family is very touching. As in life there is only the outside fascade of happy family life until the unexpected exposes all the fissions in its foundations. Although many other reviewers do not feel empathy for the mother in the story I felt she presented a very real reaction to tragedy. The desire to "run away" or "escape" the reality of the situation even if that means abandoning everything that was good to escape the one terrible thing that has happened. This is only one plot of a many layered story. Whether you can relate to the mother, the sister, the brother, the father, the boy friend or friend every perspective is presented with integrity and empathy. It is a very emotional read and in light of the recent child abductions one that feels eerily timely. I would recommended even to the younger set of 13yrs. and up as no doubt the dangers of abduction and assault are prevalent on their minds. Does however contain some graphic violence and sexually situations.
Rating: 
Summary: The glass is half full
Review: This book is very well written for the first few chapters. Alice Sebold does a great job of developing characters and starting a plot line. Unfortunately this book should have been written as a short story, because after the main plot line develops in the first few chapters - nothing new happens. This book remains very dismal until the end. The mood about how a family deals with death is well developed in the first half of the book and regurgitated in every chapter after that. Alice Sebold had many opportunities to liven up the book with some humor, but passed. I would recommend reading the first half of The Lovely Bones and leave it at that.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely a good read, but not great.
Review: This book was not chosen for our Book Group selection, however, everyone in my book group had read it and loved it, so I went off to find a copy. At first, I was VERY impressed with the storyline. It wasn't your "run of the mill" murder mystery. There was a definite need to know what happened to Mr. Harvey, but I felt that somewhere during the latter 1/3 of the book, there seemed to be a bit of a diconnect in what was written and what I desperately needed to read. I felt letdown. Perhaps the letdown was a result of all the hype I had heard. Maybe my expectations were too high? All in all it was a good read, but I didn't find the sense of calm that I had hoped to by story's end.
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