Rating: 
Summary: No Skeletons in Sebold's Closet
Review: Susie Salmon is a normal teenager in AnyTown USA, until a walk home through a cornfield one night changes her life forever. She is raped, dismembered, and lastly discarded of by a neighbor. This event changes the lives of her family members outstandingly. From heavan, she now much watch her mother cheat on her father, her sister grow into a woman (something she will never do), the love of her life move on, her younger brother almost completely forget her, and her killer live with no remorse. Through these trials, Susie ultimately learns how to love, forgive, and to come to peace with her murder.
This novel was exceptionally interesting and thought provoking. I can honestly say that I found it hard to put "The Lovely Bones" down once I began to travel through Susie Salmon's life, murder and rape. Alice Sebold amazingly created the story of this young teenager with such compassion and understanding. Also, having read "Lucky" her autobiography beforehand, I found it interesting to notice the parallels between the author's own life story and that of her young heroine's. If one can read this book and not be touched, they must truly be without a soul, for Sebold projects the horrors of her own rape through this compelling novel
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: This is one of the best books I have read in years. Gripping, murder mystery on the surface; fascinating and interesting concept of heaven; well developed process of family and community recovery after the death of a daughter/sister/friend. This a must read book for anyone and everyone.
Rating:
Summary: New storylines are rare
Review: Don't let the fact that you heard it is about a murder turn you off to this splendid book. It is not about the murder. A very good story is told from view of the victim who is safe and sound in heaven. The Lovely Bones is a book that is "different" in a very good way.
Rating:
Summary: In Heaven
Review: It is worth the read. I haven't read such a good book in years. For all ages for I am 36. Just read!!!
Rating:
Summary: a lovely read
Review: To analyze the book in a linear way -- plot -- fails to do it justice as Mr. Harvey's demise might be considered "contrived" from a plot standpoint, but there is so much beauty in the book that I was more than willing to give that to the author -- a need for some closure, some "justice." This book was hauntingly wonderful. There are scenes I think of at moments during my day and I feel the way I remember being captured by the stillness of certain images in a black and white Bergman film. There is a simplicity to the book which allows one to fall (I certainly did) in-between the words... and that space is as infinite and lovely as heaven and lonely as hell. I highly recommend the experience.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely Bones...
Review: Lovely Bones is such a great book. After you read the first two pages you can't put it down! I have read it many times and love it each and every time.
Rating: 
Summary: An all-night read
Review: The strong feeling of pathos between the young Susie and all that could have been in her young life and how her family individually reacted to her death is staggering. I became totally immersed in Susie and her tragedy. Never did the author deviate from her point-of-view of an adolescent. As her family grew up around her, Susie became frozen in time. Until, through her sister's life, she lived out her one final fantasy. The author did an excellent job of defining the various forms of grief between her family members. She also did an excellent job of defining that mysterious place where dead people go. I am not sure that a resolution different than the author's would have made a difference. The story was about people, not events.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book Ever
Review: I would just like to say that this is the best book that I have ever read. I absolutely loved it! It was wonderfully written; I couldn't put it down. If anyone is deciding whether or not to read/order this book, you should!! It's amazing.
Rating: 
Summary: Overdone
Review: The idea of a ghost telling their life from the "afterlife" is overdone. No less the creepiness of a suspense novel based on rape & murder, from the very girl's point of view, doesn't lend a poignancy to her abbreviated life, but seems to capitalize more on the "mystery" of her demise and the suspense as to whether anyone else will "get it" before he is caught. Blah!
Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly Beautiful...
Review: Susie Salmon, like the fish. You won't forget her anytime soon. Sebold's book is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. It is an astonishingly beautiful. It is sad. It is moving. So much happens that you really need to read it. Actually, do don't read it so much as experience it. This is not easy book to read--child murder is not easy to read--yet, Sebold makes you face all of it. There a touch of the magical and dreamy here, but that is as how it should be. The book is something you never will forget.
| 
