Rating: Summary: An Amazing Book Review: There is only one word to describe this book, that word is amazing. This book is unlike any other book I have ever read. Alice Sebold is great author and did a wonderful job writing The Lovely Bones. Susie Salmon is a fourteen-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by a strange guy in her neighborhood. From that day on Susie watches over her friends and family from what she calls 'her heaven'. She watches her family as they struggle through a miraculous journey while trying to cope with her death. She watches her crush and first kiss, Ray Singh, as he tries to move on. She also watches a girl named Ruth, whom she never talked to on Earth but gained a special connection with after her death. Though none of them knew it, Susie was with them when they needed her most. By reading the 'blurb' in the book you get the impression that it is a sad and almost depressing book. Yet, after reading it I can truly say that it is anything but. This is a heartwarming and sometimes funny story that makes you think about life and your own family. It is an absolute page-turner from the very beginning. I recommend The Lovely Bones to anyone and everyone in search of a good book to escape in.
Rating: Summary: A Great Novel Review: The Lovely Bones: A Novel Do you want to read a book that keeps you wondering what is going to happen from beginning to end? The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold is the book to read. This book is full of suspense and keeps it's audiences wanting to read more. Alice Sebold is a wonderful author who wrote a book of fiction, but focuses on events that really happen in everyday life. The way that Alice Sebold wrote this book connects well with the title. This book is about a fourteen-year-old girl that was raped and gruesomely murdered by her neighbor. Suzie, the fourteen-year-old girl, tells the story from heaven. This book focuses on what heaven was like from Suzie's point of view, and the events she saw taking place on earth while she was in heaven. Suzie struggles being in heaven, and not being able to help her family find whom the murderer is. Alice Sebold uses wonderful detail and great description in this book. This book is well organized and wonderfully wrote. This book is intended for a teenage to adult audience. Alice Sebold compares and contrasts the things that Suzie sees on earth. Alice Sebold tells how Suzie would figure them out and how her relatives do on earth. I didn't find any weaknesses in this book. I thought it was very well written. Some of the strengths in this book are the way Alice Sebold had Suzie give her description of heaven from a teenage point of view, the way she wrote about events that families go through in every day life, and how Suzie's family coped with her death. The Lovely Bones: A Novel shouldn't be read by a younger audience because of the graphic details. I think that the content was very suitable for teen to adult ages. I think the contents in this book give its audiences an awareness of things that could happen, and does happen to the ones we love. I liked The Lovely Bones: A Novel because it held my interest from the beginning to the end. This book made me wonder what heaven is really like, and what I would do if something like that happened to someone I know. I enjoyed this book also because the author made her points in the book very easy to comprehend, and easy to follow. If you are looking for a book to hold your interest, and keep wondering what is going to happen next, The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold is it. You won't be sorry you took the time to read it.
Rating: Summary: Truly a Life Changing Book Review: Written from the perspecitve of a 14-year-old rape and murder victim speaking from heaven, The Lovely Bones is sure to infect even the most emotionally distant reader with unbelievable senses of sorrow, frusteration, and rage.Susie Salmon watches from heaven as her family tries their hardest to cope with her death as her killer runs free. While the main plot of the novel seems depressing enough, this book causes the reader to realize the little details in life that mean so much, but go unnoticed. Susie also explores "her heaven", and learns more about herself and what she truly wants. This concept promises for an extremely moving ending which left me in tears. While her counselor in heaven insists that she disconnects herself with the living world, Susie cannot let go. She watches as her sister makes her way through high school and into college, as her little brother grows up, and as one of her classmates tries to uncover the truth. Haunting and strangely comforting at the same time, The Lovely Bones is a must-read for any avid or casual reader. Explore the shadows of death, the frusteration of hope, and the love that brings both the living and the dead together forever.
Rating: Summary: Doesn't measure up to all the hoopla Review: I was excited about reading this book as I had heard so much about it and it had been selected as a featured book on Good Morning America. I found it to be very disappointing and downright stupid in some cases. The premise is interesting, but certainly does not live up to all of the hoopla.
Rating: Summary: A thought provoker Review: We have all lost somebody near and dear to us. This book lightens the load of sadness to a certain degree when we are left to contend with our loss. I thought it was a lovely story though very sad in places it was also filled with love, fun and memories of life. The book provides a lovely way of looking at death and the loss we feel - a fantasy that you may wish to hold close. It is an easy to read book that will certainly not depress you but make you feel like you have just had a breath of fresh air come into your life.
Rating: Summary: Interesting Review: I was quickly drawn into the story. It certainly has an unusual premise. The author probably purposefully selected the most ordinary setting she could think of for the tagedy to take place. As you would expect from such a milieu, the characters are ordinary and believable in their ordinariness. I experienced sympathy for the characters, especially the father and son, but I didn't get choked up over the story, which started out as a literary work and metamorphosed into popular fiction, running out of steam at the end.--Sophie Simonet, ACT OF LOVE, romantic suspense novel (Fictionwise)
Rating: Summary: Captivating story about love and redemption Review: The book was captivating and entertaining, even hard to put down. I enjoyed the bittersweet ending, although the final resolution of the plot line with the killer was a bit unfulfilling. Even that kept the realism of the story - everything in life does not wrap up with a neat little bow. My one issue lies in the fact that the story was more of a stream of consciousness rather than a story, and after thinking long and hard, I was left with a bit of a hollow feeling that there was not a lesson to be taken away. I still give high marks to the author for an incredibly well-written story.
Rating: Summary: just awful Review: The first chapter of this book really was chilling and interesting. Still, I found some things about it that had me rolling my eyes. I guess I should have stopped reading it right there because I should have known it was only going to get worse............... Don't buy this book. It's utterly worthless.
Rating: Summary: The Lovely Bones, One of my favorite books Review: Alice Sebold does a wonderful job using her life experience to write The Lovely Bones, following her memoir Lucky. The Lovely Bones is a sad story, yet uplifting. The main character Susie Salmon tells the story of her brutal rape and murder, and the after affects on her friends and family as she watches from heaven. On a snowy day in December 1973, she was tricked by her neighbor Mr. Harvey to follow him into a underground hideaway. He claimed he built it for the children to play in but it was just an excuse to satisfy his illness. Susie was only 14 years old when she suffered this tragedy. Sebold claims, that everyone has their own version of heaven. Susie's heaven is in the place she never got to visit while on earth, high school. A heaven of her " simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers, we never had to go inside except for art class, the boys didn't pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled, and our textbooks were Seventeen, Glamour and Vogue." While Susie struggles to except her death, she watches the slow destruction of her family and friends. Her fathers obsession to find her killer which almost gets him killed. Her mothers starts to disappear from the family and after committing adultery she leaves her loved ones behind. Her younger sister Lindsay faces her sisters death throughout her teens with Susie's spirit by her side. Her little brother Buckley tries to understand the death of his biggest sister and the affect it has taken of his family. Also having to grow up without a mother. Susie also watches down on school mate Ruth, who feels her spirit all the time, and a boy Ray who she once shared a kiss with. She describes the kiss as "like an accident a beautiful gasoline rainbow." While Susie is in heaven, she comes to find out that she wasn't Mr. Harvey's only victim. Although Susie and her family live many rough years there's a happy ending. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the ending, but my love for the book was much greater.
Rating: Summary: Fantastic but challenging Review: I totally enjoyed this book, easy to read I could not put it down. The story is both profound and compelling. It illustrates well how fragile life can be and how we sometimes don't see for looking. Even thought the story is desperately sad at the same time it's not, hard to explain but understood once read. I found myself challenging my preconceived ideas of the beyond life. And questioning 'is there life after death?'. For anyone who has lost someone very close, as I have, the book reminds you of their passing, sometimes it brought a tear to my eye. But it gave me hope that just maybe they are out there watching over us. Read this book with a tissue near to hand!
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