The Lovely Bones

Rating:
Summary: Exciting and Different
Review: Alice Sebold captures readers in the beginning of the story with the interesting narration. The plot is a generally a murder mystery yet somewhat comforting at the same time. It touches your emotions and makes it a difficult book to put down. I recommend this book to everyone,and had purchased it originally by a recommendation of a co-worker. The style of writing is so different as the murder victim is narrating her own murder and observing the effects of her death on her family. She watches as her murderer carries about his everyday activities and even joins in the mourning of the victim. It is almost as if you have a backstge pass or behind the scenes footage on an average murder mystery. Alice Sebold's creativity shines as I along with many others give this book a top rating!New

Rating:
Summary: Extremely interesting
Review: I completely loved this book. It was so interesting. Alice Sebold portrays the rape with her own experiences and ends it with a murder which I think she felt like when she was raped. I think she felt like she was dead and she was really watching from afar what happens and being helpless, unable to do anything about what was happening. All she could do was hope that everything goes well. Anyone that reads this book I think should pick up her memoir Lucky. It's her story of when she was raped and beaten. I think the two books are very alike in some aspects and I can relate them easily. It's fun reading the two and seeing how alike and different they are.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as it could have been
Review: This is a book with a lot of potential, but somehow it didn't quite turn out.
First of all, in the first few chapters, the main character and narrator Susie sounds like a normal fourteen-year-old. Then she begins to talk like a well-educated adult. It's just not believable. No matter how good it sounds, it isn't what a young teen girl would talk like.
We also don't get to know Susie that well.
Secondly, this book is depressing. I'm not saying that makes it bad... it's just that, everything is depressing. Even the heaven Alice Sebold creates in her story is more of a miserable place where the dead spend their time watching people on earth live their lives and wishing they were alive. All Susie does is watch people on earth. She doesn't really connect with the reader, because basically she is just telling a story.
The most powerful chapter has to be the very first one. It's also the most disturbing.
After the story gets going, though, particularly in the second half of the book, I found myself wanting to skip whole pages because nothing interesting was happening. It seems as though there is so much potential here, for a riveting story, but it doesn't work very well. There were many "missed opportunities" for plot changes or twists that would have made things more interesting.
As a reader, you start to wonder what kind of climax everything is leading up to. You think that, with everything that's going on, it has to be something really compelling. I was very disapointed with the ending, however. It wasn't satisfying.

I give this book 3 stars, because I did like some things about it. I liked the character development you can see in Lindsey, Susie's sister, and Ruth, the girl Susie "brushed up against" in a parking lot as she left the world.
Alice Sebold is clearly a very talented writer. She deserves credit. This is a good start for her. I hope she does well in her next books.

Rating:
Summary: Watch the Hype!
Review: Like other reviewers, I felt almost guilty for not liking the book better. I read about the touching, "luminous" writing. If "luminous" means "I can't figure out what the hell this sentence is saying," then luminous the book is.

The concept was excellent - girl in heaven looking after her friends & family after her murder. Susie was fairly fleshed out, and her dad was real, but, again like other reviewers, I found most of the characters rather stilted and unreal.

Still and all, I found myself turning pages until the last 3 or 4 chapters where it was a matter of, sorry, getting the damn thing over with!

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening Novel
Review: This book is a chilling story that wittily describes a young girl in heaven looking down on her family and her murderer. Alice Sebold really goes into detail about her death and the way she reacted and was feeling at the time. It is scary because this book is not far from the truth; adolescent girls get victimized a lot in our society. This book beautifully depicts heaven and creates a picture in your mind of what it would look like. This book keeps the reader wanting to keep reading. It describes Susie in such detail that you feel like you know her. It also gets you frustrated because you know who her killer is and you want him to get caught. This story was very depressing to read, you will feel teary-eyed after the first chapter. However tragic it may be this book is also a refreshing story that at least has a happy ending. The Lovely Bones takes you through a roller coaster ride of emotions, one page your feeling happy because Susie's murder is unraveling, and the next you are heartbroken at the way her family is taking her loss.

This book realistically depicts a family in mourning over the loss of a child, and a sister. It really gives you a taste of what it feels like to have lost a loved one. How this book describes the afterlife is especially interesting, everyone basically gets what they want except for being alive and with their loved ones. The theory in this heaven is if you want it bad enough, you will receive it. Susie watching down on her loved ones is very interesting because you get to know everything she thinks or feels. She can also tell what emotions other people are feeling, or what they are thinking so that you can get to know more about that individual. What made this book unique was the fact that she has to watch her friends and family grow and make wrong choices and experience life while she is frustrated because she cannot be there with them to help them with their problems.

The Lovely Bones shed some light on what it feels like to have to loose a person that you love and what it feels like to have to watch the people that you love suffer because of your death. Susie felt horrible whenever her family would hurt because of her death because she loved and cared for them all so dearly. This book had a very powerful effect on me as a 13 year-old girl because it made me think of what would happen if the same scenario ever happened to me. This was a very touching book and I would recommend it for all age groups, especially teenagers. This book taught me to count the many blessings I have and to be thankful for them all. This book teaches you about the struggles of accepting death, whether it be your loved one's, or your own.

Rating:
Summary: The Boring Bones
Review: This story takes place in mid 70's to about the mid 80's in what seems to be a small suburban area. The main character was Susie Salmon. Susie was smart and did not seem to have to many friends. Susie had her mother, father, a brother named Buckley, a sister named Lindsey, and a dog.
She was murdered and raped early in the beginning of the story. It seems bad for me to say this but that was the only interesting part of the story. After Susie's death she spent about ten years watching her family to see how they have coped with her death.
Every one in the family had their own issues to deal with, but the book still seemed dry, as though it were missing something. I couldn't stay interested. The mother was never there, Mr. Harvey's character could have been expanded more. After He killed Susie he ran away after being accused. I wanted more then any thing to see Mr. Harvey and Mr. Salmon, one on one.
The book talked about a lot of things that seemed to have no relevance to the story, such as Ruth living in the city. There were about 4 chapters it seemed like dedicated to Ruth and her job as a waitress that seemed pointless. Another thing that could have gone was Ray's mom's character. All she did was give you a false idea that maybe Mr. Salmon might get pay back against Mr. Harvey, and smoke smelly cigarettes.
This book could have been better if there was more confrontation and less constant talk. There seemed to be no reason to want to reach the end of the book accept to see how Mr Harvey will end up. There was one attempt of something interesting towards the end of the book and that was when ruth basically became possesed, to bad that I could not understand what was going on because it was written so bad with no explanation on why or how the possesion of Ruth occured. I would not suggest this book to anyone Hence the title The Boring Bones.

Rating:
Summary: The Lovely Bones
Review: During a class for school, I was introduced to Alice Sebolds "the Lovely Bones". Within the first two sentances, I was hooked. The sentance "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name Susie. I was fourteen when i was murdered on December 6,1973". This immediately drew me into the story.

Throughout the whole book, Sebold makes you part of young Susies family. She takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions even years after her death. The hunt for her killer is just as dramatic. You are introduced very early to the mysterious character of Mr. Harvey.

This book may seem long at first, but eventually you just can't stop turning pages, and your done. I liked this book very much, but the last few chapters seemed to drag on, and I could have done without them. The last big event of the story is why I only rated it 3 stars. The event that took place didnt seem very real, and in my opinion ruined the real feel of the story. Overall, I would recommend this book to highschool age kids to adults.

Rating:
Summary: A Waste of Time
Review: This book takes place in a small town in the 1970's. It's about a young girl who is mysteriously killed and everything that comes after. The main charecter, Susie, is telling the story from heaven. She just sits back and watches everyone on earth. In heaven she gets everything and anything she wants. As Susie watches he murderer get away and her family fall apart, she realizes how much she misses her friends and family. After ten years it finally happens her family is all back together. Her mom left then came back later and now the family is coming together again. Now everyone can finally move on with their lives and get over Susie's death. Over all I thought that this book wasn't very good. It was exciting in the beginning then just trailed off into other topics and got very weird. Basiclly I would'nt recomend this book to anyone. It was a waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: lovely bones
Review: The Lovely Bones is a stroy told by a girl who is in heaven. This heaven is no ordinary heaven though. It is her own heaven and it is changed according to her own desires. While in heaven she tells her story from the past but the story also takes place at the present.

During the story Mr. Harvey, the killer of Susie goes about his evil deeds. During the book you find out how evil Mr. Harvey actually is. You find out about his past and how he comes to getting caught.

The suspense in this book is not that great. Most of the book is just the neighbors trying too prove Mr. Harvey killed Susie. The book all in all was pretty lame. There is not enough action during the book except in the beggining. I did think that it was clever how the author set the opening paragraph for the story.

Rating:
Summary: Heavenly Hellish
Review: The Lovely Bones takes place in the '70's. It's about a young girl, Susie Salmon, who gets murdered on a cold December day and no one knows who killed her, except you and her. The story is told in a very disturbing manner because not only is Susie the main character but she is also the narrator. She is the one elaborating on her death and reenacting it in her own words.

My favorite event of the story in when Susie is murdered because that is pretty much the only action throughout the story. I find that scene to be very disturbing yet interesting because the way Susie is the one telling you how she was raped and what the killer did to her.

The Lovely Bones starts off full of action that pulls you into the story but right after the first or second chapter it goes downhill. There is really no motivation for the reader to keep reading after Susie tells her story of being murdered, well atleast from a man's point of view. As the story moves on it seems to be directed more towards females because it gets more on the emotional side and it starts to move onto the family's conflicts of dealing with her death, which is where the book lost me. But if you like books that get boring real fast than read The Lovely Bones.