The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
List Price:
Our Price: $1.70
You Save: $5.80 (77%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Alice SeboldEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-01
ISBN: 0316166685
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of The Lovely Bones
Book Review: 2-year-english learning expericen Asian reading The Lovely Bones
Summary: 4 Stars
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." The first time the narrator, Susie, appeared in The Lovely Bones, was dead already. Susie was raped and brutally murdered at the age of 14. However, her spirit remained and was able to tell the story from a first person, omniscient view. If the story of a 14-year-old girl being raped, murdered and hacked was reported by media, it could definitely astonish the society and create a sensation. If it was published as a novel, it would most likely become a whodunit or a thriller that attracts readers by its plots. But the author, Alice Sebold, developed her own style, shifted the focus from the suspense to the emotional impact and expressed the beauty of family love. The Lovely Bones was a story about how people face the dead. Susie was dead. She was. But it was she in the book that was telling us the story, and commenting on everything that happened to her friends in the real world. She talked like she was right there, but she was only a visional looker-on.
Susie watched everything and recalled her memory. Even though she experienced horrible violence, she still missed the real world. She could feel everyone's thoughts but she couldn't do or express anything except for recording what she has seen. The scene changed between Susie's memory, Susie's heaven and the real world. The idea of heaven was one of the highlights in the book. Everyone has their own heaven. Susie described her heaven as a world that included all her "simplest desires but also the most humble and grand." Her heaven looked like a school. But there was no teacher, and she only went to her favorite art class. The textbooks were Seventeen and Vogue. She lived in a big house she always wanted and had cute dogs companying her. "The heaven is not about safety just as, in its graciousness, it isn't about gritty reality. We have fun." The heaven was a place where you could get everything you desired. People are always pursuing their maximum satisfaction of desire. But Susie's biggest wish was not owning anything, but being alive again. She wanted to go back to her family and re-immerse herself into a loving ambience. But this was the only wish that couldn't become true.
Susie's death was like a stone that hit the surface of a river; the ripples represent the impact of her death on different people. Susie stood on the position of a dead, watched her family and friends after she vanished, and watched their lives unfold after hers has ended. Salmons collapsed after the disaster happened. Mr. and Mrs. Salmon's marriage couldn't last without her as an important connection. Mom's escape, dad's
Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.45
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.86
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Blithedale Romance (Oxford World's Classics)by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.65
Price in other shops:
The Hundred Secret Sensesby Amy Tan
Ivy Books; Published: 1996-10-30; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.72
Price in other shops:
Dear Johnby Nicholas Sparks
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2009-12-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
Heart-Shaped Boxby Joe Hill
Harper; Published: 2008-03-25; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.47
Price in other shops:
In His Stepsby Charles M. Sheldon
Whitaker House; Published: 2004-05-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.14
Price in other shops:
The Blood of the Lamb: A Novelby Peter De Vries
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 2005-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.21
Price in other shops:
The Damnation of Theron Ware: Or Illumination (Penguin Classics)by Harold Frederic
Penguin Classics; Published: 1986-01-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Go Tell It on the Mountainby James Baldwin
Dell; Published: 1985-11-10; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.26
Price in other shops:
Lucky: A Memoirby Alice Sebold
Back Bay Books; Published: 2002-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.06
Price in other shops:
The Time Traveler's Wifeby Audrey Niffenegger
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2004-05-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.95
Price in other shops: