The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Lovely Bones
Book Review: Emotional pornography
Summary: 1 Stars
Sebold demonstrates a stunning capacity to combine all the worst aspects of American culture into a single novel - materialism, cheap religion, shallow psychotherapy, and a vigilante obsession with rare and violent crimes. The literary conceit is that 14-year-old Susie Salmon is raped and murdered, at which point she enters the perfect consumer heaven - untroubled by God or the unfathomable soul, in Sebold's heaven, we must merely say what we want and it appears. From this vantage, Susie exhibits a mind-boggling lack of curiosity about her sudden new ability to spy on her earthbound loved ones, opting instead to relate the cloyingly transparent activities of her family as they grieve her death and hunt down the man they know killed her, even though they have no evidence to suspect him. From the moment Sebold describes a character's smile as "like stars exploding," I knew this would be a monumental work of emotional [...].Book Review: Emotionally riveting
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was recommended by my mother. I've never been close to someone young who died, but it doesn't matter. If you were close to anyone who is now deceased this book will open you up.
I've cried during books before but with this book, I had no idea why I was sobbing. Was it for the characters, myself, my dead grandmother, my young son I couldn't imagine leaving? I just was overwrought with emotion it came out in tears more than once.
This book gives us another perspective to death. How it affects the dead will be unknown to the living, but to read how Sebold precisely described each character left behind by the victim...it was exact, it was hard, it was simple. Death affects the living in ways we cannot change.
I read this book in 2 days, I couldn't stop myself, I highly recommend it.
Book Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
A page-turner and such a sweet story. Everybody I know loved this book. It's about horrible things but her writing is so terrific it becomes beautiful.Book Review: Excellent read...
Summary: 4 Stars
Someone gave me this book and I loved it. The concept was wonderful, the tone was perfect. Unlike some other reviews, I liked the fact that you get the innocent, teenage perspective as well as the perspective of someone who has spent years growing vicariously through the people she watches. Her tone changes depending on who she's watching, a pattern that is easy to understand and follow. She is many things to many people, and her tone changes accordingly.
Someone suggested to me that the concept of overlapping heavens sounded similar to string theory. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
I think this is appropriate for young, mature, thoughtful readers, if you are prepared to openly discuss the subject matter with them after, as they will come away with thoughts and questions. I don't think we give young people enough credit regarding their ability to handle challenging literature. This is a good book to start with.
Book Review: Expected More...
Summary: 3 Stars
I read Lucky, A Memoir by Alice Sebold and loved it. It was so honest and captivating that I thought for sure The Lovely Bones would be similar in quality. While I did enjoy the book, it was not the level I expected. There are several small breaks in the story where she describes something or someone that seems to have little relevence to moving the story forward. It is worth reading if you don't currently have anything to read, but otherwise, read Lucky instead and be done with it.