The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Lovely Bones
Book Review: A lovely Story
Summary: 3 Stars
So this one of those I'm still thinking about how I feel with this story. I liked. I enjoyed getting to know Susie (more then the movie portrayed). There were even some characters in the book that I liked more now that I read the story. This story could almost hit a 4 star for me but it just had something that I can't put my finger on that I did not like about it. Still a great story to read for all ages. It's an exciting look into the world of heaven.
Book Review: A lovely read
Summary: 4 Stars
Got this book because I wanted to read something different. This one is different all right!
Although it starts out with a horrible first chapter--in terms of shock value--it goes one from there at a very quiet pace. That helps get over the start. Nevertheless, I found that its pace was a bit slow. I have not finished the book so I can't tell if it quickens as you go.
Characters are developing as I go, even in the first 100 pages. It is starting to make me wish for something that the narrator won't be able to do. (You will understand when you read it.)
Book Review: A novel beyond classification
Summary: 5 Stars
I would probably give this book 4.5 stars if that was available, but since it is not, the fact that I was so hooked to this book made me round up. One hears the term "murder novel" and imagines either a mystery or suspense story. This is neither. I has mystery, it has suspense, but neither are the focus of the story. It is neither pure fantasy, nor does it utilize cynical realism. It is story about a horrible atrocity that somehow leaves you feeling good despite the characters' pains and disappointments. While reading this book, I felt at one moment like I was reading a romance novel, and then at another moment, dark drama. But instead of using these twists to hit you in the face when you least expect it, Sebold uses full disclosure. She doesn't use misinformation to blindside you, but instead foreshadows everything in such a subtle way that you are almost shocked to realize there was no grand surprise at the next turn.
Perhaps the most refreshing thing about the novel is the way the author builds her characters. Not one person is at all more than human, not even the deceased. Sebold, in my opinion, has a certain knack for understanding and showing humans in their frailty without making them seem weak or pathetic. She has a gift for showing a character's strength without making them a hero. She's found a way to show the good hidden in evil without demanding forgiveness, and how to show the bad in the righteous without condemnation. So much of the strength of this story is the cast of characters, the least of which lies with the protagonist, surprisingly enough.
I would recommend this novel for anybody that has an appreciation for books depicting real life in balance. Strength and weakness, evil and purity, fact and faith; neither winning, both existing.
Book Review: A novel for the YAs
Summary: 2 Stars
The book has puzzled me from the beginning. The trouble is that the story originated in an awful experience of the author, but that flaws exist in the writing of the book. Or, the simplicity of the story bothers me. The author could work to distinguish the characters and to eliminate the miraculous. YAs would appreciate the story because the setting revolves around the family and friends of a dead victim, a high school girl, who finds that she must interfere with the ones she left. Inventive metaphors abound, but the telling is mired in the trivial lives of the characters. Who does lead of a life of heroism? However, we are examining a literary creation, where heroism is allowed.Book Review: A unique perspective
Summary: 5 Stars
From the violence that unexpectedly opens this story to the discovery of her "wide, wide heaven" at the end, the story of Susie Salmon is unique in its delivery as it maintains the viewpoint of a young girl watching, from heaven, as her family struggles to cope with her death.
Heaven is not what you'd expect. There are gazebos, pets, and friends that come and go, even an intake counselor. Susie may have anything her heart desires, anything except what she wants most - to be back on Earth with the people she loves. From this strange place, she watches her family and friends move through their grief, while the villain maddeningly will not, in any concrete form, give away proof of his guilt.
Susie's death brings together two unique characters, Ruth, a high school acquaintance, and Ray, the boy who loved Susie from afar, outcasts and loners at school, who discover a common ground in Susie's death. Ruth and Ray eventually move on in life, Ray to medical school, and Ruth, forever transformed by a brief brush with Susie's spirit, to live out her unique destiny in New York City, but Ruth eventually enables a last meeting between Susie and Ray, and Susie reclaims a little bit of the growing up that she was robbed of so long ago.
"When the dead are done with the living, the living can go on to other things," Frannie, the intake counselor, advises Susie. We follow Susie along this path of self-discovery as she learns to accept this reality. Her character was very real to me. This poignant, heartwarming story of loss, discovery, and love that endures is a rare gem, an unexpected pleasure from beginning to end, that will leave you smiling, crying, and comforted all at the same time.