Rating: 
Summary: totally brilliant
Review: This novel DOES fulfill high expectations. The 14 year old voice is genuine. The perspective from heaven in a 14 year old's interpretation lightens and deepens the detailing of her family's sorrow. Although the beginning is difficult with the vivid attack, healing is offered to the reader along with the other survivors. The ending does not disappointed. I am changed.
Rating:
Summary: believe the hype!
Review: If something seems overhyped, I usually develop an instant bias against it, so I went into reading this book doubting it could possibly live up to its accolades.Surprisingly, it actually does live up to its hype, which is all too rare given the relentless marketing machine publishers unleash behind certain debut novels these days. I was actually moved to tears several times. Jumping off from a fairly sensationalistic premise, the book is a very moving novel about how we age, families, young love, and what heaven might really be like. One of the most satisfying reads I've had in the last year. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: It's a peice of summer fluff
Review: Lighten up! This is a good story, fun to read and easy to put down. I finished it in 3 hours with a cup of tea and a scone. If you want to get into theological arguments over a summer book, I think its a big waste of time. It is pretty well written and the characters are good enough that I cried a couple times. However, there was material here for a longer book with more plotting and deeper characterization - the plot is pretty linear. I also wished that there had been a bit more justice in this book, but then I am a long time reader of murder mysteries...so I kept expecting the detective to figure something out. Lots of fun and should be read for fun. The ending was a bit much and I would have preferred for the protaganist to be more 'hands off'. If I had a second chance on earth, I don't think I would have done what she did, but hey...its a summer novel!
Rating: 
Summary: Not My Kind Of Book
Review: ... The first chapter sets up the reader for some major disappointment. Susie is telling us about her murder and yet there is no emotion for her or the reader. It seems that she is just an observer in her own death and not even a horrorified observer. The lack of emotion and important details continues throughout the whole book. The murderer isn't even that interesting! For a story about a murdered girl, there is a lot of fluffy tales of the happenings on earth(Starting after chapter 1 and going to the end of the book), such as a sister's romance and a budding friendship between 2 classmates. There are many tales of sex as well, which seems completely unnecessary. Overall I gave this book 1 star because I was upset that the hype got to me and my book club. For every 1 star there is a 5 star... so this is just 1 opinion for which there are millions more to choose from.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: Alice Sebold weaves a masterful mystery in a profoundly simple way. Easy to follow yet suspenseful, I ended up calling my neighbor before getting into one chapter -- needed her calming influence! A good book to read on the train/bus on the way to work as long as you are always aware of who is around you!
Rating: 
Summary: Imagery that will stick with you.
Review: Because of the current epidemic of teenage-girl kidnappings, I read this book. Ms. Sebold's novel presents many interesting concepts: the breakdown of relationships in the face of tragedy, suburban fear of "the sociopath next-door" as well as the hopeful possibility of life after death, even if you don't believe in God (as he/she is not mentioned in heaven). I liked the book particularly for her imagery--after I read the book, I couldn't stop thinking about her descriptions of how a soul passes from here to there--it's comforting.
Rating: 
Summary: Bang then a whimper
Review: Chalk it up to to having read too many stellar reviews or having spent the summer talking myself into reading a book about a child raped and murdered, but now that I am finished, I admit, I am disappointed. In some eerie ways, the best of the book rests in its first few chapters. These are lucid, and raw and painfully descriptive--the murder, the early mourning, the landscape... As time moves on, however, the book devolves into an odd light touch. Susie lilts from place to place, person to person, commenting on their behaviors and actions. While you sense her longing to be back there in the thick of it, as a reader, you're not so certain you want to be there. Sometimes, you feel angst and sympathy, even empathy for the characters, but everyone is so lightly painted. It is hard to grasp on to something worth caring about for more than a moment or two. ... --This text refers to the Hardcover edition
Rating:
Summary: absorbing!
Review: The Lovely Bones is definitely a book worth purchasing. I first read the excerpt here on amazon.com and then couldn't wait to get my own copy. The story is heartbreaking, hopeful, funny, and sad all at once. The characters are extremely believable and easy to relate to. Once I picked it up, it was extremely hard to put it down. Even after finishing the novel, the characters stayed with me.
Rating:
Summary: Why?
Review: All in all, I felt manipulated and disappointed by this book. Worst of all was the perpetuation of the pathetic myth that girls and women are safe at home and that the the real danger is those twisted, loner, strangers out there. Nothing could be further from the truth. Girls and women are raped, battered, and murdered in overwhelming numbers by men they know, men they love. The horrorific details of Suzie's murder, the ever-lurking murderer, the shallow choices of Suzie's mother, the fact that the parents didn't bother to fight things out with each other, and the dangerous romanticism of alcoholism in the most likable character, all slimed me to the point of wanting a shower. It was an obnoxiously formulaic plot--keep the reader turning the pages because they can't bear the dreams they'll have if they leave the horror and suspense in mid-tale, keep the characters stuck in sex, and ignore the self-awareness and real work necessary to take the developmental steps needed to support the changes the characters made. This was candy--if you have the stomach for it--more shallow than Bridges of Madison County or The Horse Whisperer. It could have been so much more. I especially wanted a deeper exploration of the mother's ambivalance about mothering, and I wanted to see her make her choices with more passion, more drive for a real quality of life for herself. After all, she had plenty of time to progress to that point. Yuck.
Rating:
Summary: Fast Read
Review: This book is well written and catches the reader by the first paragraph. Lots of sadness with the death focus, of course, but lots of hope, too. Others in my family have given thumbs up on this one also.
| 
