Rating: 
Summary: Powerful, Heart Wrenching, Stunning
Review: It's hard to truly imagine what it's like to be raped, but after reading Alice Sebold's searing memoir I have an all-too vivid picture of its brutality, the emotional toll it exacts, and the impact it can have on one's relationships with family, friends and lovers.Sebold weaves her brutal tale with flashbacks of her family life, her parent's and sister's reaction to the rape and the reactions of those close to her. Instead of being supportive, her father casts blame on her. Her self-absorbed mother who suffers from episode's of anxiety attacks cannot even attend her own daughter's court case when her attacker is brought to trial. Alice Sebold makes the reader painfully aware of the lonliness the victim suffers. Treated like a pariah by both the women and the men on campus, where she is a freshman in college, Alice has to struggle each day just to continue her college education amidst an atmosphere where she is ignored, gossiped about and treated like she is damaged goods by boys she longs to date and befriend. The ironic title of the story reflects a remark made by a policeman after she reports her crime that she is lucky to have survived. Another rape victim was found murdered in the very spot where Alice was raped. Alice's rape was her initiation into sex. She was a virgin when she was raped, making the crime against all the more cruel. But Alice is lucky in a way. She has true courage and prevails in this searing story that includes a gripping court room drama, complex characters and writing at its finest. I picked up this book because I enjoyed the Lovely Bones, and was not disappointed by Lucky, which captivated me as much as her novel did. Sebold is a gifted writer. Lucky is compelling, powerful and ultimately heart-wrenching without being at all sensational or melodramatic. The book never falters from its first page to the end, taking the reader on a journey that is both powerful and poignant, disturbing and inspirational. Sebold illuminates a brutal subject with brillance and sensitivity. She evokes the horrors of rape -- both physical and psychological -- with such realistically rendered scenes, eloquence and honesty and weaves such a stunning tale that the reader can't help but be captivated. I couldn't put the book down and read it in two days. I can't wait for Sebold's next book.
Rating:
Summary: The True Voice of a Victim
Review: Bravo! This is, by far, one of the most powerful memoirs I have read thus far (and I read a lot of them). I have to say that I am glad I read this book after reading "The Lovely Bones". It is a testament of the talent Ms. Sebold has to tell the gritty truth. It gave me perspective regarding what troubled me about Sebold's novel. In "The Lovely Bones", she did no justice to the young girl by allowing her soul to come back to Earth to claim what she had lost through violence. The brutal truth is that violence steals something from its victims that is permanent. Alice will never recover the things that she lost the night she was attacked in the park. For any victim of violence, to wish for recovery of the emotional loss they will suffer is futile. Her courage and composure throughout her ordeal, the trial, and the endless fear that must have followed her throughout is something to be awed by. The blame that she feels, and that is shoved upon her when her roommate is attacked is not warranted. That part of the memoir was the hardest to read, for me. To have survived everything prior to that, and to then be blamed for something that she couldn't possibly have foreseen, prevented, or been at fault for was harder for me to read than anything preceding it. I am truly, truly grateful that Alice did not say that she had recovered from, or let go of her anger or her pain. While I am sure to live without it would be bliss, how do you redeem the person that sends you into a personal hell? I am so tired of talk shows and therapists telling everyone to forgive. That you must forgive to heal. Ms. Sebold's poem, Conviction, attests to the true feelings a victim sustains after an act of violence. Anger is a victim's salvation. It was refreshing to hear a victim point out people that were insensitive, and even rude regarding the rape. The officer that announces to the curious audience of students that Alice has just been raped as they take her away on a gurney, the pastor that has no concern for her anonymity, the students who act as friends for the celebrity factor of knowing the victim of a crime. That part of the story of rape needs to be told. Read the book. Question the human need for chaos, the interest in pain and suffering. Teach the next generation not to hate, by not hating. Alice, thank you.
Rating: 
Summary: The Care of a Raped Survivor
Review: I am an East Boston High School student from Massachusetts and I personally think this memoir is fairly interesting. It is difficult to understand how the people around Alice handled that situation. I feel that there was not enough explanation for the reader to comprehend their reactions. It is awesome how the author is not afraid to express her thoughts and feelings. By the end of the book, my disappointment was in that she did not give enough information about what happened after her obstacles with struggling were gone. Overall, I would recommend this memoir; it benefits people in that it helps them to express their feelings comfortably and helps their understanding of others.
Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER SIDE TO RAPE?
Review: Ms. Sebold's account of her rapeand the effect on her life is tolddirectly and honestly with little left to the imagination. Despiteher degredation, I could not helpbut feel the remorse expressed bythe rapist himself who apologizedto Ms. Sebold after the initialact, telling her he was sorry forhurting her becau she was a nicegirl. That in direct contrast asto how he treated her during therape. When he meets her on the street a yearlater he speaks in afriendly voice and acts as thoughshe ight be a friend, He shows nofear of her tuning him in to thepolice. He does not know the painhe has inflicted on her. When heis arrested and faces a policeline-up, he becomes a coniver andmanages to confuse her. Duringthe trial he is almost amused until he hears what damage he hascaused this girl. Is he trulysorry for his wrong doing?Another point regarding rape: whatare the effects on a male victimof rape by another male, or even by a female? That is a subject tobe covered by a male in anotherbook but it poses a question andassumption that all rape victimsare not females.
Rating:
Summary: A POWRFUL,BRUTAL TRUE ACCOUNT OF RAPE
Review: The police told Alice Sebold, 18years old, that she was LUCKYbecause the previous rape victimwas raped, killed and dismembered.The first chapter describes therape of this first year student atthe University of Syracuse on theeve of her last school day. AliceSebold lets us see her degradedand isolated as she reports thecrime to the police and undergoesthe humiliation of the medicalcollection for the rape kit. Sheis not comforted even by the rapevictim counselor because her rapist has taken part of her awayfrom herself and she feels theterrible loss all rape victimsfeel for the rest of their lives.Alice goes home to her ever coldfamily and tries to hold ontoherself. She decides to return toSU for her second year but findsrejection, real or implied, putinto a category of women she triesto reject. She makes new friendsbut misses her old ones. In Octobershe meets her rapist on the streetand alerts the police. Charges arefiled against him: she tries toidentify him in a line-up but finds real life is far differentfrom the TV shows and street-wisecriminals have tricks of their ownto evade identification. Thefemale prosecuting assistant DA isher one anchor in the sea of turmoil around her. There are baddays with a few good ones as thecase is developed. People wantedAlice to give it up but she insists on going through with it.Her case becomes the first successively prosecuted rape casein the county's history. Sebolddraws you into her as shetells of her feelings and frustrations of rejection and herefforts to save herself from thebrink of desruction. For the first time people not touched bythis crime can begin to have alittle understanding of what awoman faces following the trialand publicity every day for therest of her life. Sebold is amasterful writer in this firstbook. Years later she writesTHE LOVELY BONES about a 14 yearold girl, raped and killed. Itmatters not the order in which youread these two books because yousee Alice Sebold's scars in eachone. Every one should read thesebooks, sensitive or not. becauseyou should become sensitive to thevulnerability of every woman andto those damaged by such a crime.You will never again read or hearthe word RAPE without a deeperfeeling for all those affected bya rape.
Rating:
Summary: extraordinary book
Review: This book is the true account of Alice Sebold, who is raped by a stranger at the end of her freshman year in college. She courageously provides the reader with a full account of what happened, her many emotional responses, and the varied reactions of others in her life. This book makes it very, very clear that trauma changes a person forever, in complicated ways. I found this book riveting, startling, hard to put down, powerful in its impact. Those who have experienced rape or other violence in their own lives should approach this book cautiously, with the support of others, because the graphic scenes in this book could have a retraumatizing effect on you. If someone you know has been raped, I strongly recommend this book to you; Alice Sebold has put words to feelings and experiences that many who are raped would not be able to put words to.
Rating:
Summary: Grimly fascinating
Review: The author went through a terrible experience, rape, and describes the experience in a way that makes you feel you are really there. She also takes you through the aftermath, including later identifying her rapist and going through a trial. It may be difficult stuff, but it needs to be said.
Rating:
Summary: courageous, resonant stirring memoir breaks silence on rape
Review: Alice Sebold's ironically titled memoir, "Lucky," is one of those rare and persuasive works of self-examination which plumbs a terrain few wish to explore: rape. Violently assaulted, sodomized and raped as a first-year student at Syracuse University, Sebold emerges as a woman able to summon extraordinary couage in the face of catastrophic violation and loss. "Lucky" is powerful and precise, evocative and searing, instructive and redemptive. Ultimately, it is a work which validates the author's immense struggle against victimhood and extols the need for voice and memory in the face of personal degradation. Several recurrent themes appear, transform and reappear in "Lucky." Of primary importance is Sebold's insistence that despite the intervention (often bungled or unsuccessful) of police, family and friends, a rape victim essentially shoulders the responsibility for her own redemption. "You save yourself or remain unsaved." A corollary emerges to complement this isolative requirement. Rape victims inhabit a different physical and moral universe. Rape is a watershed event, "a planet" in which an act of premeditated malice and violence places the victim on the other side of the chasm. To those who are uninitiated, the pain is unfathomable and unknowable. When Sebold's erudite, affect-limited father expresses an ignorant incredulity as to what he imagines to be his daughter's supposed non-resistance, she laments that if her own father doesn't understand, what hope is there that any man can. Hers is an abyss created from fear, confusion, ignorance and denial. A third theme vividly presents itself through the image of ruin. When Sebold bitterly concedes, "No nice boy will ever want me," she internalizes all the "horrible words used for rape; I was changed, bloodied, damaged goods, ruined." One of the quiet but profound virtues of this memoir is how the author slowly wrests dignity and strength from abject degradation and despair. The final themes will resonate within any person who has been victimized. They are the need to fight back, the thirst to gain control and autonomy of one's body and soul, and the want to ally oneself with loving, gentle, strong, understanding compatriots who will nurture a growing quest for justice and redress. Sebold's ringing, eloquent insistence on breaking silence energizes her post-rape experience. She learns that there is "power to be had in sharing my story." Bearing witness, pointing her finger at the perpetrator, giving voice to pure, seething rage permit Sebold to shed her weakness, isolation and self-blame. Sepaking out and choosing to prosectute the rapist are acts of defiance, ownership and reclamation of sovereignty over her body, and, consequently, her spirit. Aligned with voice are her radiant and inspirational professors who augment her sense of possibility and offer the solace and solidarity only a teacher can offer his/her students. The poet Tess Gallagher is a true heroine, a genuine teacher, artist and friend. Tobias Wolfe's gentle but firm invocation to "remember everything" affirms Sebold's assertion that "memory could save, that it has power, that often it is the only recourse of the powerless, the oppressed or the brutalized." This necessary and quintessentially inspirational memoir is suffused with pain, false dawns and recurrent tragedy. Written in part with the detached precision of a journalist and the informed heart of a poet, "Lucky" compels our identification and respect.
Rating:
Summary: A Journey to the other side of trauma
Review: Alice Sebold's memoir was initially difficult to read due to its graphic subject matter. However, I found it an invaluable description of how a person experiences trauma, and more importantly, how a person works through their experience over the years to become a better person. It is clear that surviving a horrific experience is only part of the process. The main theme of Ms. Sebold's book, that "you save yourself or you remain unsaved", appears to be a wake-up call to victims of traumatic events, in my opinion. She is saying that it is not as easy to move past terrible events as people expect you to do, that it may take years, but it CAN happen, if a person is willing to try. So, although it was traumatic reading at first, the overall theme of Lucky was positive.
Rating:
Summary: PERFECTLY READ
Review: Surely no one is better equipped to read this searing, candid, eminently intelligent memoir than the author herself. Alice Sebold, the widely acclaimed author of "The Lovely Bones" was an innocent when she was a freshman at Syracuse University - until she was viciously attacked and raped. This is her story beginning with the unimaginable violation and throughout the days ahead until her rapist is caught, brought to trial, and found guilty. Interspersed in this chronology are vignettes of her earlier and later life from her parents addiction to alcohol to her trauma induced addiction to heroin. What emerges is the story of an indomitable spirit, one who fought to win healing and wholeness. Her victory is not only an inspiration but a lesson to all. In Ms. Sebold's own words: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved." - Gail Cooke
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