Rating: 
Summary: Whoops! How Could Anyone Rate This A One Star?
Review: Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" is a book that is both well conceived and well written. I don't know how some of the reviewers can berate it for not holding the reader's attention. What does it take for them? I thought it was quite riveting. And I liked the way Alice Sebold presented the entire book within the framework of a fantasy, beginning in heaven. It reminds me of another book I have read, and by the way recommend you read also, by Norman Thomas Remick that is presented within the framework of a fantasy looking down from heaven titled "West Point..". Both that book and Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" will be enjoyable to anyone who enjoys "heavenly" presentations such as "It's A Wonderful Life", "A Christmas Carol", etc. Believe the five star reviewers of this book. It really is quite wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Chilling!
Review: I picked this book off the shelf at my book store for no other reason than being in a hurry. It had not been recommended, nor had I ever heard of the book or the author, therefore I had no expectations. I literally laughed and cried out loud the three nights it took me to fininsh this book! I found it to be COMPLETLEY depressing and utterly beautiful at the same time! My husband and kids all yelled at me saying, "just put it down" as I sobbed, and my answer was "this is what a well written book does to you!" FANTASTIC!!
Rating:
Summary: A fathers View
Review: I'm a father of a girl who is half Susan's age and with everything going on in the past 2 months I was compelled to read this book. With the narrative being from a childs point of view and myself a father, I felt so much for the family. Alice brings you right in to feel for everyone affected by Susan's death. How it affects the rest of their lives, and I felt like I could relate.
Rating:
Summary: Lives up to the hype
Review: I was really afraid to read this book after sifting through all the hype surrounding it and reading a few of the reviews on Amazon. I didn't want to waste my time reading a maudlin, sentimental "beach read."But I took a chance, and I'm glad I did. *The Lovely Bones* is not a highly complex, multifaceted novel, and the prose occasionally borders on purple--that's true. But the narration and characterization are straight-forward (as befits a 14-year-old's perspective, in my opinion) and there's something so fresh and original about the whole novel that I was immediately captivated. Sebold has crafted a work that plumbs the depths of need, longing, and maturing on both sides of the thin veil that separates the living from the dead. It's not another talk-show-pick-of-the-month book, delving again and again into all the horrible things that can happen to women, children, and the people that love them; it's broader and yet narrower in scope, tracing the ties between the victim and her family and friends over a series of years, limning the way those ties tighten and fade and eventually heal. Sebold has created a truly original heroine in Susie Salmon, one entirely believable and real, yet the other characters manage to live just as fully in the reader's imagination as she does, from her parents to her sister's boyfriend. The settings (mainly suburban Pennsylvania and Susie's heaven) are well-drawn as well, although I admit I'd have liked a few more details about heaven. Who wouldn't? All in all, I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: More than a Light Read
Review: I am enjoying this book and hope to see more from this author! I read it quickly but would not consider it a "light" read. The characters have depth, and it has honest, believable dialogue. The first chapter covering the girl's abduction is gritty but it reflects events we read about daily in newspapers. The book overall demonstrates that violence impacts and changes everyone. Would be great for a book club because the book touches on many topics for discussion.
Rating:
Summary: Unique & Entertaining
Review: The Lovely Bones had me from the first page, a morbid curiousity for a horrifying story, but one that sucked me in immediately. The first page tells us, from first person narrative, that her name is Susie Salmon & on a certain December day, she was murdered while walking home from school. So begins the story of Susie Salmon's murder. The rest is a look at how the Salmon family & the rest of the community cope with this horrible tragedy. On the flip-side we get to see, what Heaven looks like to Susie. Not only is the story line incredibly unique, the writing is excellent. Sebold seems to take a look at all of the supernatural things that people talk about after a person's death, and offer up unique explanations. More importantly though, the story centers on watching how the Salmon family copes, imperfectly, at one of the most devastating losses, that of a child. A true page-turner, The Lovely Bones is about family, love and the afterlife.
Rating:
Summary: Deserves to be at the top of the N.Y. Times best-seller list
Review: THE LOVELY BONES works on three different levels: as an unconventional mystery, as a view of heaven, and as a Kubler-Ross kind of analysis of the murder of a young girl.
Fourteen-year-old Suzie Salmon is murdered by a neighbor, having been enticed into a cornfield to look at this room he'd built underground. Almost immediately her father suspects Mr. Harvey, the neighbor, but there's not even enough evidence to issue a warrant to search his house. Sebold de-emphasizes this aspect of her story, concentrating on how each member of Suzie's family reacts to her death.
The book in narrated by Suzie, most of the time from her gazebo in heaven. Her take on heaven is rather original. Each person has an individual heaven. There's a jock heaven, there's a dog lover heaven etc. Some of them converge, then branch off in other directions. When Suzie's grandmother dies, she's not part of Suzie's heaven. She liked to drink so she's probably with the other party animals.
Then there's the most interesting part of the book, how the family and her friends deal with Suzie's death. The mother, Ocean Eyes as Suzie's father calls her, runs away from her daughter's death. The father is obsessed by Mr. Harvey, going so far as to allow his surviving daughter to search his house. Lindsey, Suzy's sister, copes by holding everything in. There's a funny scene where the clueless high school principal tries to console her, failing miserably. Her four-year-old brother, Buckley, latches on to his father and won't let him out of his sight.
Sebold's portrayal of teenagers is the best I've seen since DeGrassie Jr. High. Ray Singh, the boy Suzie'd kissed before she died, is one of the first suspects because the police found a love note he'd left in Suzy's copy of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. He's east Indian, wants to be a doctor. Ruth Connors, whom Suzy's spirit touches on her way to heaven, becomes a loner poet who sees dead people. Others are more grounded. Lindsey's boyfriend wants to be a carpenter; his brother is a motorcycle head.
The whole point of the book is how the death of a fourteen-year-old girl impacts so many lives. The book is so topical, considering the outbreak of abducted little girls. Bravo, Alice Sebold!
Rating:
Summary: Hereafter?
Review: I actually bought this book on the recommendations of Amazon, and am I glad they were right on....When I first started the read, I thought I would be to consumed with actually plot, but was I ever surprised. I finished it 2 days ago, and I still can't stop thinking about Susie and the possibilities...I actually was using a highlighter and underlining certain passages, because they truly moved me to halt and contemplate on the hereafter. EXCELLENT, first novel, can't wait for more.....
Rating:
Summary: Buckley's Cornflower Blue Line
Review: Ms. Sebold has talent. It's not a gimmick, it is called imagination, a vehicle choosen to tell the story. It appeared that Susie was in her first stage of her eternity in heaven. She had still had solid ties to earth, grieving parents, a killer to bring to justice. Hints were made that she would journey further into heaven after these conflicts were resolved. Maybe the supreme being would be at the end of her journey. We do not know. New age has nothing to do with it.
Rating:
Summary: A "must read" book
Review: I remember the first time I read "To Kill A Mockingbird", and felt that, somehow, this was a special work and would be around literary circles for a long time. Now it's a modern American classic, and I felt the same way when I read this book. It's simply a wonderful story to read, and I feel that it is destined to be shortlisted for the Pulitzer in Fiction. The writing and character development are first rate, and the plot moves you along at a perfect pace. At times you cry, at times you laugh, and at times you do both together. Even though the underlying action that propels the book is a horrible crime, it's pushed into the background, as it were, to get to the unintended consequences of the murder, not only on the victim, but on her family and friends. Maybe I'm just an optimist, but I truly wish the author's idea of heaven were actuality. Read this book, you won't ever regret it!
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