Rating: 
Summary: Imaginative
Review: i love the point of view... the little girl killed in this story tells us how it went down from her place in heaven. although this book didnt make me think "I CANT PUT THIS DOWN!" it was an interesting read, very sad but a good read. i reccomend this for anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing AND Hauntingly Beautiful!
Review: What an incredible book. Once I started reading, I could not put it down! The extremes of emotion that overwhelmed me while reading this book reflect directly on the talents of the author. One of the best books I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: inspiring
Review: This book inspired me in many ways. I just finished it about an hour or so ago and i absolutly loved it exspecially when she gets to meet ray again this book changed my life. I really have a different perspective on life now and i'd like to thank Alice Sebold and this wonderful book for it. I hope she writes a sequel!
Rating: 
Summary: Incoherent, jumbled thoughts
Review: This novel starts out with an interesting premise, and it could have been very thought-provoking if the author would have stopped jumping from one half-finished idea to the next.Central character, Susie Salmon, speaking from Heaven, had her life ripped away from her at an early age. So, I can understand, early in the novel, incomplete ideas being expressed. But as the novel wears on, Susie is still expressing random thoughts and simply reminiscing about old times before she was murdered. There is a sense of incompleteness, which I can understand the characters experience, but it is not very nice to force this incompleteness on your readers. Other than the original premise of the murdered teenager remembering and musing on life going on without her, there simply isn't much else going on in this novel. I know it's the first work from author, Alice Sebold; however, Janet Fitch, in her first novel (White Oleander) had a far better gripping plot, although depressing---"White Oleander". If you are looking for intelligent, literary quality-female writers....Anita Shreve, and even Susan Vreeland, are much better at expressing complete and direct ideas in a very succinct manner. Everything about this novel is too vague and you are never sure what is real and what isn't. A little mysticism and afterlife stuff is fine, but too much simply confuses the reader who is hungering for a plot line. I learned my lesson. Don't read something just because it is popular and a bestseller.
Rating:
Summary: A Different Kind of Tragedy
Review: This book hooked me instantly with its opening scene. And then what was different was that even after Susie was murdered, she is still our protagonist. The point of view in The Lovely Bones is unique; how often do we read from the dead's eyes? And then we see what happens to a family after the disappearance and murder of one of its members thru Susie. We follow them for years, watching their broken lives along with Susie. And we also watch two other people who touched her life, Ray and Ruth, two classmates. By the end, we know Susie has become to accept she is unable to infuse herself into her families physical lives as well as broaden herself in heaven. And her family moves on, however broken just the same.
Rating:
Summary: You'll never think about dead loved ones the same again.
Review: A friend gave this book to me to read. I had no real interest at first. But I was sucked in by just the first chapter. Alice Sebold puts a new spin on Heaven and the way it may actually be for the deceased. This book is full of fatastic imagery and wonderful insight into just how our loved ones may be watching over us from above. It's a very heartbreaking tale of a family's struggle to live life again once they've lost a close family member to a tragic and too early death. It does get a little creepy and supernatural here and there. But overall, it's the best story of struggle and coping I've read since "She's Come Undone."
Rating:
Summary: a beautiful ride through rough waters
Review: The Lovely Bones is a rare book in that it simultaneously examines the murder of a young girl on two separate planes: from the detached viewpoint of heaven and the emotional devastation on earth. I found myself reacting to the novel both as a reader, admiring Ms. Sebold's lovely writing and insight, and as a parent, imagining myself in the horrible position of the father in the novel. The result of my identification with the father, even though I have been fortunate enough never to have lost a child, made me feel surprisingly angry at the way that I perceived that the father was being treated in the novel by the wife's character. Only after getting away from the book did I come to understand that my identification and reaction came from the excellence of the novel's character portrayals. Although I have been done with the book for about two weeks, I still find myself thinking about the book and about the characters in it. This book is an emotional tour through landscapes both the strange and disturbingly familiar. An extremely effective effective and affecting novel.
Rating:
Summary: Affairs To Remember
Review: Why should you read this book? In my opinion, Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" is one of the most uniquely presented and creatively written fiction stories to come out in many years. The only others in the same category, that I liked, are the "Harry Potter" books, in fiction, and, "West Point: Character Leadership...Thomas Jefferson", in creative nonfiction. If you would like an unusual experience, don't miss reading Ms. Sebold's great book, or the others I have mentioned, for that matter. They are all affairs to remember.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting take on the afterlife...
Review: With a writing style that is not overly sophisticated, nor is it overly pretentious, this touching story about life, love, family, and letting go is certainly worth picking up. I breezed through it in just a few days, and though the last few chapters left me wondering "where did that come from," I still thoroughly enjoyed it. A little hokey at times, this easy read takes you through a girl's personal heaven and presents the notion that each of us has the ability to spend eternity in our own personal heavens. The author does a fabulous job weaving you through the lives of each character - leading you to tears in one chapter, ultimate rage in another, and finishing you off with a sense of closure. Pull up a seat next to a window on a warm summer day, read this book, watch children play in the street, and revel in the thought that sometimes, days don't get any better than this.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down--believe the hype!
Review: I laughed, I cried, I couldn't put it down. A touching story of a life cut too short and how it effects those around us.
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