The best thirty one cent book I've ever purchased!
Written: Dec 06 '05 (Updated Dec 06 '05)
Product Rating:
Pros: This book has kept my mind wondering. Slightly depressing but wonderful!
Cons: I had to focus hard to really understand this book.
The Bottom Line: It's different then any other book I've ever read before, you'll miss out if you don't read this book, my words can hardly describe this book's worth.
laurelcard's Full Review: Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
I bought this book on a website called cheapbooks.com for thirty one cents. Being a poor college student you learn to use any resources that are available to you.
Two years ago my English teacher recommended this book to me; I read two thirds of the book but had to return it to my teacher. I forgot about it during the summer, and a couple of years had passed by and now I am in college and my English professor asked us to read a novel of our choosing and so I did and I thought of this book and how I didn't know the ending, it was the perfect opportunity for me.
Susie Salmon was violently raped and then murdered by her attacker. She then presses about the event in the beginning of the book. It seemed strange to me to start a book with such a big event, but Alice Sebold has nicely arranged the story in a special chronological order, that keeps you on your toes.
Alice Sebold doesn’t try to glam up Susie’s death, or anyone else for that matter. She starts the book out with the plain hard fact of her death, but she then compels you further and further into it to find out about Susie’s life after death.
Susie tells you the story while in her heaven, but Susie’s heaven isn’t made up of angels and fluffy clouds. It’s everything she wants it to be, the things that she hasn’t experienced yet. It looked like the future high school that she wouldn’t attend. The ice cream shop had peppermint flavored ice cream, year round.
She meets people in her heaven, one being her best friend Holly. They read fashion magazines together and discuss the fashions they would miss. They would talk about the people they missed, their childhood crushes, and the unknown future, they were going to face. Susie was never alone in her heaven, Franny her counselor, was always there for her. Leading her through her heaven and giving her mother like advice along the way.
She is allowed to watch her family from a gazebo in heaven. She watches her mother struggle with the pain of losing her eldest child, as she tries to keep the family together but is falling apart with her own efforts.
Her father keeps relatively steadfast holding together what his wife isn’t able to do. He is the biggest key in figuring out who murdered his precious daughter, as his wife watches doubtfully at his efforts.
Lindsey is Susie’s younger sister who now becomes ready for the charge of being a sister. Throughout the book she works hard, and doesn’t focus on this tragedy but moves with a straight foot forward. At times when Susie watches her sister, she is saddened by the love life that Lindsey was able to have, and how hers was ruthlessly taken away from her in fight for life. But in the end Susie learns to watch and have joy over living people’s gains that she wouldn’t be able to gain for herself.
Buckley her little brother, who was only three years old at the time of her murder, slowly and difficulty learns about the disappearance of his sister. He stays in the middle of his family that is broken with heart ache from their loss. At times he’s a loving boy, but then stone, cold and bitter with his churned up emotions.
I love watching the Salmon family with Susie in the gazebo; Alice Sebold paints such vivid pictures in my head, the story sticks with me, weeks after I’ve read it. This book has left me with such a wonder of life and death, I keep thinking that I might have the answer, but then I’ll read another chapter and I’m completely wrong, it’s not very predictable at all, which makes it wonderful.
Alice Sebold keeps you jumping throughout the entire length of the book. She does it to keep your attention; it makes the story unpredictable and thrilling. For example Susie is watching Buckley her little brother from heaven and reminiscing. The Alice Sebold talks about Susie’s mother and how her mother is struggling with Susie’s loss and trying to raise her family underneath all her grief. And then it might skip over to Susie’s earthly crush, Ray Singh, and his family. This book doesn’t solely focus on Susie’s death, but on the all the people it has affected. Almost a fourth to half of the book deals with people grieving with Susie’s death and their thoughts and feels of her. But the rest of the book talks about their lives and how they’ve grown up.
Susie matures but then ages through her years in heaven; sometimes she slips to the earth and touches hearts, and feels the emotions of life, as if living them for a second time. The last third of the book is really interesting and full of amazing details, make sure you don’t blink and lose a single word. Sometimes people and things aren’t as they seem, pay close attention to this wonderful book.
I constantly was rereading passages to make sure I got the perfect understanding of the book, and what Alice Sebold was meaning to portray. As I think more and more about this book, my views of other people have greatly changed.
I feel that I chose to read this book not only because I had read Alice Sebold’s book Lucky, but because I’ve never really been sure how to deal with death and life after death; this book gave me a complete new feelings on the subject, and I love thinking about it in a whole new way, having never been sure of how to deal with death and the after life. I like books that make you think about the unknown things in life. I highly recommend this book to anyone that like to think, and that can look beyond the violence, besides the bad guy gets his just desserts in the end. Go ahead and take the plunge and read this superb book. Happy Reading!
Sebold s mesmerizing and luminous first novel--a #1 national bestseller--builds a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, and even joy, following an u...More at Buy.com
Once in a generation a novel comes along that taps a vein of universal human experience, resonating with readers of all ages. THE LOVELY BONES is such...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.