The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Lovely Bones
Book Review: Analysis of The Lovely Bones
Summary: 4 Stars
Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. Pp. 328. ISBN: 0-316-66634-3.
The Lovely Bones is a novel set around a fictitious but all too realistic tragedy of a young girl's disappearance and murder. The narrator and main character of the novel, Susie, tells her story from heaven as we the reader follow her family and friends through a very grueling and evolving process of grief and acceptance. The author of this novel is fairly new to the world of literature, though she has formerly written for both the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. Alice Sebold has one other published book under her belt, a memoir entitled Lucky which was published in 1999. With the publication of The Lovely Bones, she is being hailed by many as a promising new voice in literature. This novel explores the range of emotion, memory, and healing that goes along with one of the more terrible tragedies that a family can face. Beginning with the narrator's murder, the book takes the reader to many different levels of human suffering and strength. Rather than being a murder mystery, the plot travels along a much more personal and connected path with a girl trying to come of age in death as she never could in life.
The main character, Susie Salmon, is forced to watch but never participate in the lives of her friends and family after her brutal murder. In her heaven, Susie is surrounded by whatever her heart desires, yet it is the living still on Earth that she finds the hardest to let go of. Her death is faced differently by every member of her family, with her father's eventual decline and breakdown, as well as her mother's futile attempts at escape from her pain and duties of being a mother. Lost in her grief, Susie's mother distances herself from her husband and family through an emotionless affair and even moves across the country for several years, as she tries desperately "to find a doorway out of her ruined heart," (197). Susie's younger sister, Lindsey is forced to mature much quicker than she might have normally, and becomes the stabling force in her family's house, a strength that their father and youngest brother draw from time and time again. It is Lindsey who remains calm and understanding to her father's disprovable theories concerning her sister's death, and it is Lindsey that the younger brother always runs to in need of comfort or explanation during their mother's absence. Susie's friends Ruth and Ray are also objects of her close attention. Living out her junior high romance with Ray vicariously through Ruth, Susie watches happily as the two graduate high school and then college, while always honoring Susie's memory in their hearts.
After her father suffers a heart-attack, Susie's mother is compelled to return home, and for the first time in nearly ten years after their loss, the family finds itself back together once again. For the first time since Susie's death, they are able to accept the fact that they are living and continuing on without feeling that they are betraying Susie's memory. These connections are what Susie observes as "the lovely bones,"(320), the realizations made after she was gone. Around this same time, she witnesses the accidental but just death of her murderer, Mr. Harvey, who although much suspected, was never caught. It is after seeing her reunited family that Susie can finally find and accept comfort in her heaven, and it is on a very inspiring note that she bids the reader farewell.
The target audience of this book is teen to adult, due to the sometimes gripping description of Susie's death and other adult themes. I feel the general population would enjoy this book, though I would imagine some mixed reactions regarding the plausibility of some supernatural elements of the story, especially Susie's description of heaven and her ability to watch over others. Some of these ideas of the afterlife may not agree with everyone else's, or the Bible's, but this is a story worth suspending any reservations about because of its beautiful message.
I personally loved the book and would definitely recommend it to others because it's beautifully written. The characters are so intricately developed and complex that they are impossible not to care about, and the author's use of language keeps the plot flowing effortlessly for the reader. I commend the author for her graceful approach to this otherwise horrible subject, and weaving throughout it the perfect balance of sadness, honesty, and humor.
Book Review: Are you grieving a family loss? Then this book is for you.
Summary: 5 Stars
Kudos to Alice Sebold. I read this book after seeing it mentioned at a grief website and found myself deeply touched by the Sebold's keen insight into the emotions surrounding survivors of tragic deaths.
It's been almost two years since my sister died in an auto accident, and while I've moved along in the grieving process, this book was very cathartic for me on many levels (and led to many tears as well as smiles). I could see so many parallels in what happened to Susie Salmon's family following her death to my own family's reaction to our loss, as well as the unexpected consequences on friends and even acquaintances of the deceased.
So, if you're grieving an unexpected loss, you likely will find yourself glad you read Sebold's debut novel. A note for survivors of sibling loss, she gets it.
Book Review: Are you kidding me?
Summary: 1 Stars
Inexplicably, this book sold like 85 bazillion copies. I read it quickly because I wanted to get it over with. Although I admit the writing is better, this book lives somewhere between Christopher Pike (whose books I loved--when I was 13!) and The Celestine Prophesy, which is probably my all-time least favorite book. This story is told from the point of view of a dead girl. I wish she had just stayed dead and not bothered to tell us a story.Book Review: Are you kidding me?
Summary: 1 Stars
Inexplicably, this book sold like 85 bazillion copies. I read it quickly because I wanted to get it over with. Although I admit the writing is better, this book lives somewhere between Christopher Pike (whose books I loved--when I was 13!) and The Celestine Prophesy, which is probably my all-time least favorite book. This story is told from the point of view of a dead girl. I wish she had just stayed dead and not bothered to tell us a story.Book Review: Beautiful, Poignant, Sad
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished The Lovely Bones, and then I cried for an hour. Now my face is poofy.
The book is, of course, sad. However, it also has a beautiful image of heaven and a wonderful story of a family that ends up healed and whole after the death of their daughter. I was comforted by the way Susie could look down on her family and be near them, even make herself known to them a time or two. In the beginning, Susie spends time thinking of all the things she will never get to do, which of course was terribly hard for me to read, but the worst of it? The absolute worst part was reading about her individual family members as they broke up under the pressure of their own grief. That was what had me crying on the bus. Honestly though, the book was wonderful. It's just something that some of us will have to read alone, in the dark, with wine.
Verdict: A