Rating: 
Summary: A Heatbreaking and Gorgeously Written Page-Turner...
Review: Our narrator Susie Salmon is already in heaven. Raped and murdered by a neighbor when she was only fourteen years old, Susie tells us the details of what happened to her and what it is like to be in her new place. From Heaven she watches her once happy family collapse as they try to deal with the unbearable -and unsolved- crime, while Susie herself yearns for the one thing she can't have: to live with the people she loved. As the years go by, Susie's friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, and do all the things that Susie never had a chance to do herself. Yet while the murder remains still unsolved, no one is really able to make peace with the loss of Susie and she herself that can't let go. She tries to communicate from the "other side', but can't really connect, until a startling climax which brings a kind of resolution, and Susie can make her peace and move on. Alice Sebold's novel, "The Lovely Bones" has so much feeling and power of how a worst thing a family can face, can suddenlly be transformed into a suspenseful novel about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing. Out of all the books I have ever read my whole life, Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" is one of my favorites of all time. I acutally wept reading this book. It has truely brought out all emotions in me to just feel what each character in this book is feeling, and I think if you read this wonderfully written book, you will feel it too. It's one of the best books out there, where you'll never forget reading.
It has really brought out the true meaning of the healing power of grief. Everything we experience here is filtered through Susie's eyes and voice. In the end, it's not Susie herself but her family and friends, drawn so uniquely, that brings her so compellingly to life.
Rating: 
Summary: The elbow bone's connected to the ....
Review: This book was passed on to me (no pun intended) by a relative who's reading tastes don't normally agree with my palate; this story did. Read in nightly bubble baths while recouping from an illness that made me feel like an old sack of bones, I looked forward to it greatly. Susie's narration was hopeful and heartbreaking, and made me remember people I once knew who are no longer. Some, far too early. An odd thing to know they've been dead longer than they were alive...much like Susie. There were a few places that I found plodding, such as the running home in the rain sequence by the sister. More satisfaction with the killer's ultimate end and Susie finally being brought home would have supplied closure to the reader.--Laurel825
Rating: 
Summary: Starts out well & then 1/2 way through things go haywire
Review: Sebold starts off strong and just when we're hooked, the story starts to venture off into Twilight Zone territory. Perhaps Sebold was getting a little bored with the tale and thought a few twists were in order, but unfortunately the events and ideas verge on ridiculousness. For one example, what is up with icicle fascination? Also, the house that is found that....what do you know....just happens to belong to another character in the story who is willing to give it up in the snap of a finger. It's a little too neatly tied up. The beginning is so promising that you read the last half of the story hoping that everything will line up and make sense, but it never does -- at least not for a realist like me.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: After reading about the plot of this book I was very excited to begin reading it. The story started off well, however, it went downhill quickly. After Susie dies she watches her parents, siblings, murderer, and a couple of classmates from heaven. She also describes her heaven which she shares with another child. While the idea of this book is wonderful, I felt there were too many characters and I was never able to learn enough about one to connect with him or her. I was very disappointed after reading this story.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Stop Reading
Review: Once I started this, it was one of the hardest books to put down. It combines a murder mystery with the high emotional content of a teenager's viewpoint on life and death. The narrator is a 14 year old girl who has been murdered. After her death, she can see her family from heaven as they struggle through life after the tragedy. She stays 14 as her family ages. This book is thrilling and emotional, but full of insights.
Rating:
Summary: Could've been so much better.
Review: I finally got around to reading this after hearing all the hype. Before, I avoided this book, guessing that it'd be depressing.
It completely lacked emotional impact & character development. Susie tells her story emotionally void. Every time I thought they were going to dig deeper into a character, it just sorts of fades away and doesn't happen. Such a tease. Did not live up to the hype.
Rating:
Summary: Over-hyped. Don't fret about skipping it!
Review: This is a coming-of-age story thinly veiled as a child-who-was-raped-and-killed tale. It's told in the frist person from the POV of the girl in heaven, as you know by now, though the protagonist spends most of her time following her living family and friends on earth. She watches them mourn her and she watches them grow up - grow up being the operative part. There is more growing up amongst her peers and sister described than there is overcoming her loss. There is little to nothing about her feelings, other than her feelings of missing out on growing up on earth. It's odd to me how a book can become so hyped as to become a phenomenon. This was Ms. Sebold's masters thesis, if I recall correctly, and it reads as a student piece of work. It's sophomoric and its very series subject matter is treated sophomorically. Alice Sebold, herself, was raped and wrote a memoir about it, "Lucky." This book, to me, came off more as a draft or grappling with how to deal with her situation in writing. It fails. Truly, to me it read as a coming-of-age story. It's easy, breezy reading. Given the subject matter, should it be??
Rating:
Summary: Best Book i Have ever read
Review: This book is easily the best book i have ever read, however i am only 15 and have little time to read. this book- unlink any other book, play, or writing- made me get to think (thats pretty hard) and although i hate reading i have read this book 3 times, and i the middle of the fourth. this book is extremely touching and although someparts are gruesome(sp?) it makes you wonder many things, and if this book can make me care about charectors, i certain you will care about them too. i do not think that this book was made for a certain audience but for anyone, i picked up this book with the worst expectations (i had just finished adromeda strain and rainbow six) so this book was not the kind of book i thought i would like, but the way it touches your heart should make any human love this.
Rating:
Summary: A unique and powerful reading experiance
Review: The Lovely Bones is simply an experience. I will admit right out that it may not be for everyone. However, in my humble opinion, Alice Sebold has created a story that is so full of depth and emotion that it is almost eerily easy to picture the lives of the characters unfold before your eyes. As each page turns, the characters lives continue on, their lives being told through the eyes of a 14 year old girl. That innocence of a child is never lost, and the perspective never ceases to be truthful. Through this truth, the tragedy, the love, the comedy, the life of all the characters comes through shining, be it while a grandmother fixes herself her favorite drink or a man finds himself at the center of an unexplainable miracle, the truth and life behind it is remarkably clear. I encourage everyone to at least try this unique read, and I hope that you enjoy the experience, however potent and emotional, as I have.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Story
Review: This book was a book of the month for our book club and I was kinda hesitant to read a book about a 14 year old girl being murdered. However, after finishing this book, I cannot rave enough about it. It is an amazing and touching story which will stay with you and make you think. I had my 16 year old niece read it and she insisted on buying Alice Sebold's other book "Lucky." I highly recommend this book to everyone!
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