Rating: 
Summary: Great read
Review: I read this when I first lived on my own in a new city. I was on edge for quite awhile afterwards! Touching and interesting.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put it down!!!
Review: I don't mean to sound like I live under a rock, but I had never heard of this book or this author before my trip to Barnes and Noble one day. I went with friends and saw that this book was 20% off and was a #1 National Bestseller so I decided to get it. Well, less than two days later - I finished the book and was profoundly affected. I knew nothing about the book before I started reading - I didn't even read the liner notes. I just took the plunge and started reading and got completely sucked in to the story and the characters. In my own suburbia, we have an Indian family just like the Singhs. A mother, son and father (I've never seen the father). I felt like I knew Susie, Lindsey and Buckley. I wanted to go over to their house and be friends with them, comfort them, tease Susie about Ray and Lindsey about Sam. This book had me bawling in parts and trust me, I'm not that kind of person. I don't cry at books unless they suck me in and I can imagine that I'm part of the character's lives. After reading all of the reviews on this book and seeing that a lot of people put this book in the category of "overrated" or "boring" or "too depressing", I just have to laugh. The book has received four out of five stars and was reviewed 1887 times, so clearly this is not the consensus about the book. I say - give it a try. This is one of my favorite books of all time - right up there with Where The Red Fern Grows, Bridge to Teribithia and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Rating: 
Summary: Totally inappropriate for teens !!!
Review: This book starts with a sickly suggestive and accurate description of a rape and a murder. I can say that the rape was too close to home for me... as I was raped as a teen... and spent years dealing with my fear of men... Several weeks ago my lovely adopted daughter began to act out and have severe mood swings, lack of sleep, snuck out after midnight, totalled my car, tried to run away, and even told the police that found her that she had been attacked by me! Then I find my own adopted teenaged daugther, who had been raped as a toddler by her father, had been assigned this sick and totally inappropriate book by her English teacher. She has been haunted by only half understood memories... dredged up by this perverted book... and now she has to write a term paper on this disgusting book. Please don't buy it, or give it to teens to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Lovely Bones
Review: On one icy day, Suzie Salmon was walking home from her usual adventures. All of a sudden, Mr. Harvey pulled her over to have her check out his new hang out lounge...under ground. Soon enough, Mr. Harvey is on top of Suzie, and well lets just say he was getting a bit innapropriate. After he got what he wanted, he took a knife and cut off all of her limbs. Mr. Harvey stashed her limbs in the sinkhole. This book shows visions from heaven as Suzie looks down upon her family and loved ones while she is dead. Meanwhile, back on earth her father is getting in to a bit of a fuss and a bunch of trouble. Read the book to find out what the story tells
Rating:
Summary: Overrated, Aimless, and Bland
Review: The aftermath of a murdered daughter's family as she watches from heaven. This could have been good. But with the sagging melodrama that never goes anywhere until some amateurish contrivance for an ending, this is one boring read. These great characters deserved more. Pass on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: TIRESOME
Review: I also learned of this book second-hand. The referral came from an English lady who indicated that the book was taking her country by storm. I read quite a bit, mostly bestsellers, but found this novel to be somewhat different from the mainstream. The concept of meeting the narrator, Susie, the 14 year old girl already dead and in heaven was unusual, to say the least. In a nutshell, I found the story to be too contrived. The characters were not at all believable. Susie's concept of heaven, and it being whatever we want it to be was cute, and offered the only bright spot in the book. After that, with the introduction of Susie's family, the story starts to go downhill. Like many other reviewers, I found Susie's mom to be the least likeable. The fact that after enjoying a "quickie" with the lead detective on her daughter's case, she fled from one coast to the other, abandoning her remaining daughter and 3 year old son, because she couldn't handle the death of her older daughter was totally incomprehensible. Susie's father's obsession with capturing the person he felt to be responsible for Susie's murder is told in a manner which seems, at best, uneven and clumsy. Susie's alcoholic grandmother (who moves in and comes to the family's rescue), the daughter Leslie, a very mature 13 who finds solace in her boyfriend's bed, and the quirky friend Ruth, helped add improbability to the story. The fact that the story stretches over eight years is also tiresome. In the end, all the loose ends being tied up, even the unlikely death of Susie's murderer, was pathetic. I read the book reviews, after having read the book, to see if I had missed something in my reading of it, seeing as how so many people were singing its praises. I personally think that people so taken by the novel should perhaps read "The Emperor's New Clothes" as a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: An Over-rated Mess!!
Review: Whew!! What was all the hoopala about this book? It was a bore. Very white...And Wasp...talk about dull...However, the first 100 pages were beautiful!! My only question is: what happened after that? The author focused very heavily on pulling the reader in but to what avail? As always with these writers today, they don't know how to construct a story! Yawning all the way down to its inevitable conclusion. Sags and sags...and to think that this author made a lot of money!
Rating:
Summary: A Gripping and Poignant Book
Review: I approached this book unsure if an author could pull off writing an entire novel from the perspective of a murder victim. Alice Sebold accomplished this and more. The Lovely Bones is a gripping and poignant book. Although it is somewhat sentimental, after all the narrator, Susie Salmon is 14-years-old. I felt the sentimentality was a necessary part of Susie's voice and revealed her character. Author, Alice Sebold, avoided gratituous gorey detail to lure readers into the book and, relied instead on a solid, well-told story. I had a difficult time putting The Lovely Bones down, and after I finished it, the story (or was that Susie?) haunted me for days.
Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: Excellent,impressive...extremely well done book that is hard to put down once started. I like the idea that the book is told from the victims point of view. Original work. recommending the following books as well: Nightmares Echo, Lucky,Running with Scissors, A Child Called It
Rating:
Summary: Spectra of Grief and Hope
Review: Absolutely amazing--a one-of-a-kind novel.
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