The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0330485385 Global Overview for this book
Registered by angellica of Worksop, Nottinghamshire United Kingdom on 6/12/2005
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2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by angellica from Worksop, Nottinghamshire United Kingdom on Sunday, June 12, 2005
Amazon.co.uk Review
On her way home from school on a snowy December day, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is lured into a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case.
As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams", where "there were no teachers... We never had to go inside except for art class... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue".

The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow".

Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons, Amazon.com

Journal Entry 2 by angellica from Worksop, Nottinghamshire United Kingdom on Thursday, June 16, 2005
On its way to AhPh

Journal Entry 3 by AbPh from Oxford, Oxfordshire United Kingdom on Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Just got back from holiday and found that this book had arrived for me from Angellica.

Looking forward to reading it.


Journal Entry 4 by AbPh from Oxford, Oxfordshire United Kingdom on Friday, July 1, 2005
A fascinating and beautifully written tale. Difficult and potentially harrowing subject matter made beautiful and told with hope. Had wanted to read this for a while and wasn't disappointed.

Will leave lying around at the Umbrella Conference to be picked up by a book-loving librarian.

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