Rating: 
Summary: Difficult story told lovingly
Review: I was very impressed by Sebolds treatment of the subject. Not melancholy nor irreverent. Just incredibly sensitive.
Rating: 
Summary: A hell of a concept of Heaven
Review: One could think Heaven is a wonderful and undisturbed place since it's our final destination and a coronation of a temporal life (well, maybe for some of us). But not the author - for her it's rather more like hell! Being an angel seems to be a cruel penalty for humans. The main character died but still missed her earthly life instantly hoping someone down there would think of her for at least a while and regreting things she didn't manage to experience. Living in such Heaven would surely be exhausting and depressing whereas as an angel you cannot do anything to interfere with any aspect of life of those who are still alive - neither to help nor to hurt them in any way.
Rating:
Summary: The Lovely Bones
Review: This novel is one of the best novels i had ever read! It start out with a very interesting and exciting introduction that kept me glue to the story. Inside the book it showed me lessons about love life and death. The plot was about a 14 years old girl being raped and killed very close to her house by a murder no one suspected. The girl was actually the narrator, which made the story became so interesting since we already know what really did happened. I love the way Sebold mentioned every characters in the novel that made the readers able to undertand their personalities and attitudes and how different members of the family react differently to her death. It was a new experience for me to read a book concerning death, but it had gave me a very good impression that made me want to read other books similiar to this. In this novel it made me nervous, excited, happy, and so sad that it made me cry.
Rating: 
Summary: Morbid version of Our Town
Review: For those who think that this is a slick genre thriller or a great whodunit need to look elsewhere. Or if you were like me, stick with it find yourself pleasantly surprised. I picked this up, like most, from strong word of mouth and a moderately original premise. A girl who is brutally killed tells her story watches her friends and family from heaven.
While the premise is violent, the book is not. It's about a family, community and the victim itself impacted by seemingly senseless act of violence. Both sides coping with loss and struggling to let go. I found myself wading through the first seventy five pages or so and I realized two things. This book was not what I thought it was and I really enjoy reading about these characters.
Those who say that this is a classic might be speaking a little to soon. You don't uncork a bottle of wine that has not aged properly. But the book does resonate and I would love to see where this is in fifteen years or so.
Profound and evocative, this is one of the few "popular fiction" novels that live up to it's hype. Just be aware that it's more Thorton Wilder and Russel Banks than John Sanford and Patricia Cornwell. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disturbing
Review: I opted to read "The Lovely Bones" simply because it has received so much attention, being on the best seller's list, being compared to classics such as "To Kill A Mocking Bird", etc. I was completely disappointed in the book itself and the fact that it has received so much praise. While the book does raise some thought provoking questions about death, the whole concept of the book is very dark and for lack of better words, weird. The only reason I continued to turn the pages until the end was because I wanted to know how it was all going to be tied together and that turned out to be the biggest disappointment of all. I honestly don't know why I even continued to read it after the first chapter was so graphic in the details of Susie's rape and brutal murder. I found her heaven to be a very lonely place, not at all like one would hope Heaven to actually be. And I found Ray's and Ruth's obsession with her death pretty unnatural. I wouldn't reccommend this book to anyone who doesn't care to read about the rape and murder of a child, a disappointing heaven, a sick and twisted killer, and a totally ridiculous ending. Very disappointing! A classic, definitely not!
Rating:
Summary: Relationships
Review: While Sebold creates a wonderful character in Susie, it is the relationships between the other characters that made the book amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging Story
Review: In terms of comparison of theme, there are many similarities between THE LOVELY BONES and GHOST, especially pertaining to the frustration of the murdered spirit not being able to reveal herself/himself (respectively) to the killer. It was certainly an engaging story and the writing was in line with LUCKY, MY FRACTURED LIFE, and SECRET LIFE OF BEES. The character drive is incredible and carries the story.
Rating:
Summary: Why did "The Lovely Bones" become a mega-seller?
Review: On August 14, 2002, I attended an Alice Sebold reading. As an ex-journalist, I'm a cynic. Until that day, I had only read about five novels since 1978. Most fiction involves less research, "rules" and time 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. Then astoundingly, 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, shocking and almost neglected book in 1999 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 "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 an atmosphere 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 an 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." It's not literature aspiring for greatness, filled with big words, tortuous sentences and the type of false profundities that wins awards. It's a book that achieves something greater for most writers -- a chance to weave a collection of universal themes -- through an accessible narrative that sophisticated readers as well as the greater body of people who have zero desire to read can appreciate. 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. 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 a scene that comes too close to "Ghost." Is this a book for the ages? Maybe not. But I'm disturbed that a "commercial" success, even unexpected (as some forget this was), can be 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, despite her repeated statements that a huge ideological gulf exists between "Lucky" and "The Lovely Bones." Yet the success of "The Lovely Bones" proves it doesn't matter. Thirty years from now, people will still be talking about it. I'm convinced no matter how hard Sebold tries -- the legacy created by her non-fiction "Lucky" and her fictional "The Lovely Bones" -- will remain preserved AND inextricably linked. This is why she succeeds in restating, perhaps inadvertently, the universal message that 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 "presence," they remain eternal.
Rating:
Summary: Just one question...
Review: An excellent read...but it should make us all wonder...just who are the people in our neighbourhoods?
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: I picked this book up at my library. It was on the sale shelf, and I usually grab any book that I might be slightly interested in. The title of this one was odd, so I thought I would give it a shot. It was an enjoyable read. If you're the type of person that likes to read about a main character, then you probably wouldn't care for this. The story skips around a lot between all of the loved ones/friends that were left behind when Susie died. You ride a rollercoaster through the book to somehow end on a good note. I won't knock it, though; I'm a sucker for good endings.
|
