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Summary: The Lovely Bones
Review: The Lovely Bones is about a girl name Susie Salmon. Growing up in the sixties, Susie lead a normal life until she was thirteen years old. On her way home from school one day, Susie was kidnapped and murdered in the field near her school. That is where the story begins. The story is about Susie, watching from heaven, her family and friends cope with their loss.
The Lovely Bones was a very worth while read. The author is very good at drawing the reader in and fully discribing the emotions or the characters. It's an excellent book with many twists and turns that will make you want to keep reading.
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Summary: A wonderful read!
Review: Having read both "The Lovely Bones" and "Lucky", I am enthralled with Alice Sebold's ability to weave an enchanting story about such difficult topics as murder and rape. "The Lovely Bones" is a fast, entertaining read that hooked me from the very first sentence. I highly recommend this book, and would suggest that the reader become acquainted with Sebold's memoir as well ("Lucky"), which tells much more about why Sebold chooses to write about such difficult issues. "The Lovely Bones" may seem to end too perfectly to some people, I was left feeling like all of the wrongs that had been committed were in some way righted. Characters like these deserve to have a happy ending, and Sebold did not fail to deliver what seemed to be the fairest ending possible.
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Summary: Engaging Idea Takes the Easy Way Out
Review: Like many people who picked up this book, I did so to see what the hype was about. Not only has it been a bestseller, but it received outstanding reviews when it was first published. I think the praise it has received is only somewhat deserved. Ms. Sebold certainly deserves enormous credit for creating a story that seems, in the world of contemporary American writing, original and daring. And she took on an extremely difficult subject, on top of that--it's not easy to write convincingly about loss and grief as it is, let alone from the viewpoint of a 14 year-old. But Sebold gives us a narrator in Susie Salmon who is convincing and memorable, and paints equally impressive portraits of the Salmon family, devastated by the young Susie's loss. The writing, toward the beginning, comes across as simple, straight to the point, tight, and this is exactly the way to render a portrait of grief without delving into the traps of sentimental lyricism or philosophical musings on death and human nature. The first half of the book is very good at avoiding those traps; the second half is not. I found myself cringing more and more as the book progressed, finding more moments that felt a little too much like Oprah "remember your spirit" moments than I would like in a good novel. They occur when Susie makes annoying observations about the dead--that their souls are like snowflakes, that they are the air we breathe, etc.--and when the narrative hits the reader over the head with the notion of "letting go." These examples and more struck me as a simplistic way to deal with the subject matter. They seek to comfort us, but true comfort would come with understanding; Ms. Sebold should have stuck with her exploration of the situation at hand instead of trying to make us feel comfortable about that situation. The turn toward the supernatural at the end, which is fine for a story that's supposedly narrated from beyond the grave, managed to feel unconvincing, a device that allows for yet another tender moment (the novel is filled with them, not all of them work) and not much more. The appearance of all the major players (save the murderer) in the same room at the end is another cliched and unconvincing way to wrap things up all too neatly. My one hope for a higher level of complexity, as I flipped through the last couple pages, was for the murderer to get away--which would at least be realistic, as many murders go unsolved and some murderers do get away--but even here Sebold takes an easy way out, allowing Susie to give in to a harmful impulse for which there are seemingly no consequences--strange given everything that the book has been about. Still, the story is structured ingeniously, and again the characters and situation are certainly memorable, even, in many places, powerful. But it would be interesting to see what Ms. Sebold comes up with when she challenges herself more with her narrative and doesn't rely so heavily on the easy way out.
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Summary: READ THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I don't understand why there are so many people on this website who found this novel terrible. There are flaws oviously, but every novel has its flaws. I have never been so touched by a book before. The emotions every character goes threw comes alive. I believe every character is realistic, but then again that's my own opinion. The Lovely Bones, in one sentence, is the kind of novel that reminds us why we read books. Even as beautiful as the novel was to me, I don't recomend it to everyone. Because the subject is oviously not for everyone. As a reader I believe the novel will become a classic. But if anybody asked me if the book was good I would tell them... to me it was phenominal and beautifuly written. And it is my all time favorite book. Give it a chance. I loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time!
Review: In her book Alice Sebold preyed on my primitive motherly fear of something happening to my child. She did this to keep me reading through her mundane, drawn-out, wordy narrative. She could have written this whole story in two chapters, but chose to pull me into her story by fear and then keep me in "reading purgatory" for chapters on end. I read so much waste before I could grab another tiny little morsel of the plot. I wanted to know what ultimately happened to Susie Salmon and Mr. Harvey. I found myself reading for the purpose of getting to the end of the book. When I finally did get to the end, all I could say was "it was a waste of my time." Don't read this book...NOT WORTH IT!
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Summary: graceful writing
Review: Perhaps the "bones" could also allude to Sebold's language, which is simple but musical in its word placement. I don't like overusing the term "musical," but it fits here. I could sense more of a character's tension or wistfulness just in a certain position of a comma or the shortening of a sentence; the first chapter is particularly rhythmic: "Gently, I did./The end came anyway." This occurs at later points too, though, refreshing the reader with beautiful figurative language when some of the story gets too facile or flat. Not having a clearly defined religion, I didn't have any problems with Susie's heaven that way. It was interesting, in fact, to consider the afterlife as "to each his own." And if you think about it, there is a mention of a possibly greater heaven when Susie is observing all the souls at night with Frannie. The individual heaven is poignant, too, even reflecting loneliness where traditionally, the dead aren't supposed to have any. I thought the "grief circle" was moving in this way; Susie also reflected her family's missing her--especially her father. Sebold illustrates the impact of losing a child and lingering over it too long; the survivors become a kind of ghost, too. She knows how to use characters to hint at her theme. Some characters, though, were a bit undeveloped, particularly Ruth and Ray. Ruth just seemed like a medium thrown in for some reason, though she was useful to Susie in one scene. Ray just seemed like a romantic foil. Also, I think the story dragged on a bit as Susie felt like she had to tell us every little event her family went through, some of which had nothing to do with the story. With underdeveloped characters involved, this got a little tedious. At some points, it almost sounded like a typical YA story, but thankfully there were few of these low points. The ending is clever but almost too much so, if you know what I mean. All in all, though, this is a gentle, gracefully written book worth keeping for at least the language, the "what-ifs," and the dreamlike qualities.
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Summary: To each is own...
Review: I have to write something about how I feel because my sister really enjoyed this book and suggested I give it a read. I love my sister but I thought this was not a well-written book. I was somewhat drawn into the story at the beginning, but quickly lost interest and didn't want to finish. Forcing myself to open the book back up, simply because I can't have an unfinished book in my apartment (and as I mentioned I love my sister), I continued it. As I read on, I just wanted to get it over with and find out what happened with Mr. Harvey to see if they solve the crime. There's nothing more perfunctory than to "make" your reader go through the details of every character, when the main drama of the plotline is so invariably piecemeal. Oh my god, don't read this book if you get easily irritated by a writer's own personal technique that can force you to read 100 pages which simply could be said in one paragraph.
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Summary: I Just Don't Know...
Review: I'd heard that this book wasn't one of the best, and I just had to find out for myself. I read it, and I just don't know. Some
parts were very good, and the pages flew by,but there were other parts, where I just wanted to call it quits. Susie is a 14 year old girl, who one day on her way home from school, is lured away by a neighbor. Her parents begin
to worry and as time goes by, all that is recovered is an elbow.
After a decade, her parents give up hope of finding her alive. This book goes on to tell the stories of the way Susie's death
affects her friends and family. But after that the story gets a bit unbelievable, and I couldn't wait for it to be over. In my opinion The Lovely Bones is worthy of a 3.5.
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Summary: Mind Blowing
Review: For someone that cant stand reading I couldnt put this book down. I read 46 pages in 1 hour. This book is amazing. I found it breath taking and and mind blowing. You never knew what was coming next. I love the way the author described Heaven. It is everything you wanted the most while you were on earth. I give this book 5 stars because it is something you wont put down till the very End.
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Summary: The Not So Lovely Bones
Review: I picked this book up because I'd heard a lot of glowing reviews from friends. However, I wasn't very impressed. I think the story could have ended about 100 pages before it actually did. The first half is engaging, thought it lags at points. But from pg. 140 and on, it just goes downhill.
At first glance, the characters seem real and well put together. But as one reads on, it becomes apparent that Sebold is struggling to develop them further and instead of giving more insight into who these people are, the reader is left with more questions. The plot goes from enchanting and original to cheesy and very Hollywood, so much so, that you might find that you're actually laughing when you are supposed to be crying.
But this book did give me hope. Since I'm an aspiring writer myself, I took great comfort in knowing that THIS made it to the best seller list. If Sebold can do it, then there's no question in my mind that I can.
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