Rating: 
Summary: Incredible, a "lovely" read
Review: The first of Sebold's fiction novels, this book must be one of the most powerful books I've ever read. Her main character explains watching her family after her rape and murder in such a way that the reader feels they, too, are watching their own family. It's all about the twists and turns of family, love, and letting go. Incredibly vivid, Sebold knows when to uses incredble despcription to entrance you, and when to let reality smudge and blurr. It's heartfelt, genuine emotions had the ability to sweep me away. One of the main lessons of the novel: don't expect all the answers. So too, do not expect incredible resolutions at the end, but take in the details. This book is like fine food; definitely indulge in it. The mystic quality between Earth and Heaven is incredible, and at the end, you will want to own this novel. If you like White Oleander by Janet Fitch, read this. The Lovely Bones is worth every second you'll spend reading it. Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: What They Read in Hell?
Review: If any of you out there are contemplating reading this novel because you've read all the critical raves, and noted that the thing has been on the bestseller lists for 197 weeks, please, do yourself a favor, and stay away from this one. It is an utterly unoriginal, hackneyed piece of sentimental drivel, bound to burden you with a dull headache before even a third of the way through. As everybody knows, the story is written in the first person by a dead fourteen-year old girl, a victim of a rape/murder, who now resides in heaven. Nobody likes it there. Heaven isn't that much different from earth, wouldn't you know, except you can pretty much get anything you wish for. Our heroine still gets to go to high-school, but yippee! only art class, and, "the boys did not pinch our backsides and tell us we smelled." Really. There is really not much to do in heaven except sit on your veranda and watch your family or anyone else on earth if you want. She watches her Dad smash up all his model ships in helpless anger. She watches her little sister act tough in front of her moronic principal. She watches her father distract her four-year old brother by telling him that he will take the kid to the zoo: "Buckley heard the word zoo and all that it meant--which to him was largely Monkeys!" Yep. Monkeys. Capital M. Exclamation point. She reminisces about her mother, pregnant with her, (how would she know this?), sneaking bites from macaroons in the downstairs bathroom. She, "ate all she wanted, rubbing her belly and saying, 'Thank you baby,' as she dribbled chocolate on her breasts." Thank you baby. Rubbing her belly. Chocolate on her breasts. She teases her brother about her sister being, "snooty-wooty." "I . . . burrowed into his stomach with my head, butting him and saying 'snooty-wooty' over and over until the trills of laughter . . ." God almighty, do I have to go on? Her sister is really smart, don't you know. Her would-have-been boyfriend is very smart too, of course, and even has an English accent. Not only that, but her would-have-been best friend is ALSO very smart; so very, very smart--and talented--that the teachers don't mind if she skips class because the poor dumb bunnies are embarrassed by her. The murderer is a poor, lonely, single, non-descript male, and he's not only a murderer, but a serial murderer. What a surprise. He makes her tell him that she loves him before he takes the knife to her white skin. Ooh. But he gets it eventually. Yay! The police are very diligent and serious but they just can't seem to figure out anything. No clues wander up to them and grab them by the lapels and smack them in the face, even though our heroine was killed less than a hundred yards from school, less than a hundred yards from home, and less than a hundred yards from the murderer's home. What to do? But at least there's the grim, sympathetic detective, who really, really cares. He cares so much that he overlooks the most obvious place in town that a murderer would dispose of evidence, a place everyone seems to know about EXCEPT for the sympathetic detective. But enough of this. The book is terrible. It should be taught in college as an example of how NOT to write fiction. Indeed, it's the kind of thing one would expect to find in the "required reading" section of the library in the hot place.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: In one word, BORING. The beginning is "gripping" but the novel reads on like an after school special.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Interesting Read
Review: I enjoyed this book very much! I bought it in the airport and was almost done by the time my plane landed 4 hours later. I couldn't put it down. Presents a very interesting perspective on the afterlife. Highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: It had great potential
Review: The first several chapters deserve five stars. With more time and effort, perhaps the rest of the book would have worked out to something more satisfying. The characters became stick figures and the plot points ridiculous. A good editor would have helped.
Rating:
Summary: A Book Loke No Other
Review: I had heard nothing about this book when I got it as a Christmas gift. I began reading it the night I got it and finished it a couple of days later. It gives an interesting perspective of what Heaven might be like, but that wasn't what the book was about (as some people are saying). How does a family go one after a child is kidnapped? When all of the media hype goes away, what is everyone left with? We see what happens to Susie's parents, siblings and friends. It's an emotionally heavy book but it is truly like no other I've read.
Rating: 
Summary: how is this such a good seller?!
Review: i didn't enjoy this book! parts were disturbing... and boring. i didn't even think it was worth finishing, so i stopped. other people i know who read it said it was depressing and not very good. i have no idea what the hype was about!
Rating:
Summary: Lovely & amazing
Review: Wow. That's what I thought when I was reading this book and when I finished it. What an original tale, what an amazing writer. To tackle something like rape and murder from the viewpoint of the 14-year-old victim and make it work. Not only work, but soar. We've all probably read stories about a family trying to pull things back together after the loss of one of its own. But we've never heard it from the dead's perspective. And what a perspective! Susie Salmon, the deceased in question, hovers over her remaining parents and siblings and watches as they come to grips (or fail to) with her violent demise. A poignant, heart-wrenching situation is made more so by being told from Susie's perspective. We feel her loneliness and alienation just as acutely as we feel that of her family's. This book seems to cover the specter of human emotions. It says so much about sudden loss, about going on with your life and about the importance of family. It is simultaneously spiritual and grounded in reality. Having said all this, the only part that really didn't work for me was when Susie's soul briefly comes back to earth by inhabiting the body of a friend for the purpose of making love with her junior high school boyfriend. This was a tad implausible and unnecessary. Overall, though, the book worked. And it wasn't as depressing as you might imagine. In fact, it's almost hopeful.
Rating:
Summary: Literary Work???
Review: I was utterly unimpressed by this novel. I can't believe I heard someone actually call this book a literary work of art?
The appeal of this book is much like 'rubber-necking' a highway accident. The idea of death-rape-family breakdown is not a new theme, nor did I find Sebold's approach to it fresh and exciting. The ending is patchy, slapped together, and she could have done a much better job to bring the ending together to save the rest of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read Book!
Review: This book is very good and not as gruesome as the title sounds! I read this book in two days being down with the flu for the weekend. It is inspiring and brings hope to the reader! I thought I would find it depressing but realized otherwise! Don't skip over this thoughtful, insightful book!
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