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| The Lovely Bones | 
 enlarge | Author: Alice Sebold
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  278 reviews
Sales Rank: 580
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0330485385
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780330485388
ASIN: 0330485385
Publication Date: June 6, 2003
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 It was OK. September 24, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was an easy read and held my attention long enough that it became a very fast one, too. I read, more or less, everything and anything, but The Lovely Bones wasn't one I was itching to read and probably wouldn't have been read at all if it hadn't been for all the hype and a bargain carboot buy. (Incidentally, you can tell which books are the result of media hype because of what you find at our local carboot. In my town, there is no book shop, but almost every box of books had a book by Dan Brown, Jody Picoult or Alice Sebold in.)
The story itself was OK, in a shrug, pull-a-face sort of way. I recommended it to my Mum, who loves these sorts of grim-reality books, and said she could keep it. So make what you will of that. At least, like some books I`ve read in the past, I don't feel like I've wasted my life reading it. I just feel a bit `meh' about the whole thing - disappointed perhaps. I mean, it began well, and the middle was juicy enough to keep me reading, but by the end, I was feeling unsatisfied and a little put out by the whole possession of Ruth and the whole Ray and Suzie incident.
It was just odd and jarring. I had never really felt that Ray and Suzie had this almighty connection going as was suggested, I thought it was more of a school crush then anything else; but then when Suzie fell into Ruth's body and all the rest that followed, it was then that everything just got all too weird for my liking. That's not to say that I don't like the fantastical, but the story had set certain rules in regard to what Suzie could and couldn't do. She could have everything she had ever desired in her heaven, but she would never be allowed to have contact with her family or those of the living until it was their time to pass over.
And then the author seemed to break her own rules and suddenly Suzie gets the thing she desired the most, Ray (which like I said, I didn`t even feel like she really did desire Ray all that much). Perhaps some foreshadowing would have helped here - or perhaps there was some and I just missed it! I mean, it was implied that Suzie could influence the living world (Mr Harvey dying by her choice of weapon, the garden in full bloom for Buckley etc) and that Ruth and Suzie shared a connection through dreams and such, but for Ruth to be possessed so suddenly, and without much explanation, was just plain odd for me and left a bit of an aftertaste.
From then on, it just felt like a very long epilogue.
The first year after Suzie's death was very well paced and when they held the impromptu memorial on the anniversary of Suzie's death, I felt that the story had reached a sort of pinnacle and that we had started on the last stretch to the end, but...it wasn`t ending. The following pages followed the events of the next eight years and became so sporadic that I began to wonder whether I was reading the same book I`d started. Like I said, there had been a steady pace before, but now years would pass and I was inundated with major life events - marriage, graduation, birth, possessions - in just a number of pages. It was an odd experience, here I was, impatient to finish after the Ruth incident, yet feeling rushed all the same.
But with all that said, there were something which kept me reading and I think it's because I enjoyed Sebold's writing so much - she has a very nice way with words. I felt her voice was genuine and there were some very nice descriptions. One in particular was the story of Jack and Abigail, and the stolen cup without the handle that was used as a makeshift ashtray after their first night together. It was these sorts of details that made the story warming and something the author is very good at.
The characterisation was a little hit and miss for me, and I thought there were far too many of them. There were times when I had to flick back to remember who they were and why they were in the story at all. Mr Derwitt for example. Hal?
I thought Jake, the father, was very insightful and I could feel all his pain and his frustrations. Lindsey and Samuel were, frankly, annoying. They seemed flat and unbelievably perfect, and naming their daughter Abigail Suzie made me cringe.
Overall, it was OK. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a easy read and then suggest that they don't read the end. It was definitely not deserving of all the hype.
 I Have Never Disliked A Book More (spoilers, kind of)... September 20, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was leant this book by a friend who said that despite the slightly dodgy ending I would like it. I took a look at all the reviews in the front cover and thought that if so many critics loved it it must have something good about it. I couldn't have been further wrong. In fact, this book goes to show how wrong public opinion can be.
First of all, the language used was so incredibly overly sentimental. I understand that Susie would miss her life, but she just came across as incredibly selfish almost wanting to prolong her family's grief. I had no sympathy for any of the characters apart from Susie's mother, because before she had children she had great plans for her life, but because of the expectations of women in the seventies (when the book was set) she felt she had to have children. And then just when she thought she might be able to go back to education she gets pregnant again. I, in fact, would have probably liked the book a tad more if when the mother had left she had stayed away. She had her own job, she had her own space. But she decides to stay once she returns. *rolls eyes*
The father was extremely annoying, just for the length of time that his grief went on for. I have no sympathy for people who live in the past, and therefore I couldn't have any sympathy for any of Susie's family members.
The book also broke with all bounds of logic. The notion of heaven was completely illogical, and the body swap (so to speak) near the end was extremely confusing because nowhere did it even hint at why it happened.
All in all, the book was a real let down. Considering I like depressing books, I should have liked this book, but by the end I wanted to throw it against the wall in my frustration (I would have done if it belonged to me).
 Gentle accounts of heavy subjects September 9, 2008
I was captivated as soon as I realised that the narrator of the tale is doing so from the spirit world, a refreshing perspective, and spoken through the mind of a child the descriptions of the mechanics of mortal and astral metaphysics are explained accurately and simply. There is great insight in this book, not only in respect of the above, but in the understanding of the mind of the serial killer and the tortured childhood that made him what he became. The stigma communities pour onto to those who are different in some way,(e.g. the Ellis boy), and the prejudices they hold is also touched upon, along with the gross misconception that those who appear polite, normal and act in a regular fashion must be inherently good people.
The tale is great but the greater depth is in what is written between the lines, the slights and references to things deeper and unsaid, and how the novel weaves fragments of information back to earlier references in a most elegant style.
Well worth reading, although I thought that the ending was incongruous as though the book had been hastily finished, or the final chapters replaced with a new "happy ending" so as to please the American mass market. This then, after a gripping and touching realistic account, made it seem less real, as life does not usually turn out to be that kind or tidy.
Overall it has become one of the books I will namecheck and recommend, and look forward to reading again: the true litmus of value!
Readers who enjoyed this may also be interested in the non-fiction classic "Testimony of Light" by Helen Greaves, as it narrates form a similar perspective, although is without any nasty bits!
For women only August 9, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I was recommended this by female co-workers but didn't take to it and reckon most men will feel the same. The plot would lend itself to being a thriller's but the book could barely be further from being one, despite a couple of Hitchcockian sequences. What we get is schmaltzy family drama which drifts along in a not particularly compelling fashion.
Bland incidents are relayed about the unsympathetic characters while all the time you wait for the real exciting bits to come, or at least some interesting philosophy. And you wait, and wait... but nothing arrives. There's definitely the germ of a great, if deeply unpleasant idea here, but airy sentiment and woolly storytelling muffle it. The conclusion especially is a real non event.
Finally, the heaven idea is simply silly and irritating. It hardly sounds like 'heaven' either, more like utter hell, sitting on a swing watching dull earthlings mope about. It also begs the question: will she be sitting there watching for the next five billion years until the earth is destroyed by the sun going supernova? If so, what will she do then!?
It's difficult to envisage the upcoming film being liked by men either, even though it's Peter Jackson directing.
Almost perfect August 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a very moving book, which dealt with the subject of child murder with great respect - in direct contrast to the misogyny of The Last Four Things by Andrew Taylor. I felt able to believe in Susie Salmon straight away, despite the fact that she was narrating her story from heaven. The depiction of the effect that grief has upon a family was intensely drawn, and Alice Sebold has created some marvellous characters - especially Ruth, who honoured the murdered as she walked the streets of New York City, and Susie's glamorous grandmother, Grandma Lynn.
I felt that the seamlessness of the book was spoilt near the end when the dead girl miraculously consummated her relationship with Ray, her first love, and I also wished for an alternate ending for Mr Harvey, Susie's murderer, but you can't have it all.
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