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Summary: A Most Unusual, Hopeful and Touching Story
Review: This book's unusual premise gives one pause to consider deeply how humans are affected by death, both here and on the "other side". If you are looking for a fantasy about what life after death is, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a whodunit, this is not your book. This book requires the reader to become more involved in the often overlooked and deeper result of the losses that those who are merely vouyers of crime seldom experience. The author challenges you by stretching your thinking past the obviouis criminology or emotional pain caused by a horrid act of violence. Having the victim tell the story herself is the key. So, no matter what your beliefs are about crime and life after death, I guarantee you'll find something within these pages that you hadn't thought of before.
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Summary: THE LOVELY BONES by ALICE SEBOLD
Review: I was torn between not wanting to put this book down and not wanting it to end. You don't want to put it down because it is so gripping but you also want to take your time so you can absorb every word!!! Reading this book, you feel so much a part of the Salmon family - everything that happens to this family affects you too. I cried with them, rejoiced with them and felt all their fears and frustrations. In the end I breathed a sigh of relief that everything would be ok with this family. I would give it a 10 if I could!
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Summary: Good Times
Review: This book is excellent. This author brings you to a world delicately described. I highly recommend reading.
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Summary: Luminous and Hopeful Novel
Review: Alice Sebold has done a masterful job of telling an unusual story, narrated by a 14 year old murder victim from her heaven. She and the author showed that even in the worst of circumstances, there can be light and hope. Every word in this book is polished and perfect, and every character is fully developed. As a reader, these are things that I really appreciate. Each character in this book deals differently with Susie's murder and each one's pain is different. Susie tells her story in a matter-of-fact voice as she watches each person handle his or her grief in their own way and in their own time, sometimes unraveling in the process. She comes to believe that if she watches hard enough, she might be able to change the lives of her loved ones. Her voice is full of such inner peacefulness that you know she has risen above her horrible death and the loss of her innocence. Her descriptions of "my heaven" are wonderful and her term "the Inbetween" makes one pause to think...... Is death really the end of life, or is there more? Sebold gives her readers a lot of food for thought concerning this question. Personally, I find that it is comforting to think that my deceased loved ones are *out there* watching what is now going on. I am not a religious or spiritual person, so this is difficult for me to imagine, but this book certainly made me wonder.
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Summary: Brilliant, Beautiful, and Luminous!
Review: I thought Sebold's story was fantastic. First of all, the narration is ambitious (as told from heaven!); and secondly, she makes sure that despite this "fantastical" point-of-view, the story never comes off as sappy, or banal. It's just a very good, intimate, uplifting story of a girl who views the lives of the survivors of her death from up above. Very creative.
My one criticism is about the events towards the end involving her "first love" --I just thought that that was a bit unrealistic, but it was still sweet nonetheless.
I highly recommend this book because it's so different, fresh, and again, brilliant! I assure you, you'd like it!
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Summary: Wonderful!!
Review: I am not a religious person, nor a believer in the "hereafter", but I found this book to be so comforting, and so well constructed....the sadness of the main character's death is balanced by the influence she can still have on her loved ones, and the eventual "happy" ending for all of them. I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially those who might have recently lost a loved one, or are perhaps facing their own personal crisis. A gem.
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Summary: First True Classic of the 21st Century!!!!
Review: Forget THE CORRECTIONS - Here is the first literary classic of the 21st century. This is a book which should be read by and enjoyed by readers of most ages - 9-90!!!! The story's subject sounds horrific and I admit, when I first read the summary I didn't think it was the kind of book I would want to read. But then I began to hear more and more buzz about it and gave it a second look. Thank goodness I did! This is one of the best novels I have read in a long time - And to think, this is Alice Sebold's first novel (her first book was an autobiography). The story begins with - without the gruesome details - the brutal rape, murder and dismemberment of young Susie Salmon (like the fish!). From the second chapter forward you will begin to see life on Earth as Susie sees it from "her heaven" - Susie follows her friends and family around for the next 10 years and witnesses, as the reader does, the heartaches, joys, successes, failures, mistakes and progress they all make as a result of Susie's death. It seems ridiculous at first when Susie talks about her intake counselor in heaven - but as the reader reads on, you begin to see Susie's heaven and imagine that perhaps, heaven is whatever you want it to be - whatever our hearts and minds make it. According to this book, each person's heaven is what they want and/or need it to be. It's actually a very comforting thought. As the reader goes through each chapter and learns how each character grows and changes, you witness how Susie's death affected each of the characters and made them into the people the people that they become. In other words, each character goes through changes and grows in ways that wouldn't have otherwise been possible if Susie had not died when she was 13 years old. There are some parts when the reader may question the reality of the situation and may think that Ms. Sebold has gone too far - as when a "Ghost"- like experience places Susie back on Earth in her friend's Ruth's body and how the dastardly Mr. Harvey meets his maker (believe me, you can't imagine it - you have to read it to believe it!). But other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can easily see how it could become the first real classic of the 21st century. It should be require reading for High School English classes, Creative Writing classes and anyone who wants to enjoy a really, really good, thought-provoking book. I'd give it 10 stars if I could!!
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Summary: Hard to put down - A remarkable story
Review: This is a great book that should be read by everyone. From the moment I picked it up it became difficult for me to put it down. As I continued reading the story I became more and more interested in each of the characters...it felt as though I had known them my entire life. I look forward to reading more of Alice Sebold's novels.
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Summary: The most over-hyped book of the summer.
Review: Alice Sebold writes beautifully. Also one saving grace in this book is the delightful grandmother who pops up from time to time. That character alone convinced me that Sebold really does have talent and may be capable of writing a decent novel, some day. Other than that--ugh. What an awful book. I can't believe I read an entire novel about a little raped/murdered girl who watches her family from "heaven." And then when she briefly body-snatches her old friend and hangs out with her old boyfriend for a few hours. Good lord! Like another reviewer on this page, I groaned out loud several times, too. The full-page ad in the New York Times has Anna Quindlan urging, "If you read only one book this summer, read Lovely Bones." So let me urge you--PLEASE. If you read only one book this summer, make it something decent--NOT THIS. Read Rohinton Mistry or Andrew Miller or Tessa Hadley or "Spies" by Michael Frayn.
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Summary: Not all that and a bag of chips, but an okay story
Review: I finished this book last night and have to say it is worth finishing. But I found it to be by turns both gruesome and sentimental. The grief of Susie's family lingers, but the scenes from her heaven wander into a too sweet sitcom version of a 14-year-old girl's feelings.
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