The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alice SeboldEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2004-04-20
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 352
Book Reviews of The Lovely Bones
Book Review: The Lovely Bones review
Summary: 5 Stars
by Vanessa Stylianos
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, is the story of Susie Salmon who is raped and killed at the age of fourteen by the hands of a neighbor, Mr. Harvey. After being lured into a strange underground fort, Susie becomes just another one of Mr. Harvey's victims in a chain of female serial murders. While coping with her death, Susie watches her family live through the investigation of her murder, and the devastation that follows the realization that Susie is gone. Each member of her family is affected in very specific and individual ways, from her younger brother, Buckley, who was too young to understand what death was when the murder occurred, to Susie's mother, Abbie, who falls into a state of immense doubt and insecurity about her marriage and life as a whole. Living in her personal heaven, Susie experiences the emotional rises and falls of each member of her family, as her own absence from Earth becomes more and more bearable. Susie's death and afterlife also make a huge impression on the lives of childhood classmates Ruth and Ray, who continually feel her presence.
I chose to read this novel based on a recommendation by my peers, and expected a sad story about a young girl's murder. Instead, The Lovely Bones shattered my predeterminations, and turned out to be something completely different than I had expected. While there were obvious moments of sadness, every other emotion is experienced when reading this novel, from happiness, to frustration, to hope. The unique point of view, as the story is told as Susie's view of Earth from heaven, gave me a whole new perspective of heaven and the idea of an afterlife. I could not put the book down simply because the story was so compelling and grasped my attention from first page to last. The way Sebold explores how Susie's death had such an impact on not only her family, but certain people who hardly even knew her, is fascinating. Sebold's style of turning a topic that is often exploited by the news into a tragic, yet hopeful tale illustrates her ability to portray the grief that results from a horrific murder, while instilling hope in all that read the novel. I also enjoyed The Lovely Bones because it showed the emotional effects of a loss on a level that I had never realized before; members of Susie's family are ultimately affected by her death in almost every aspect of their life, in both obvious and extremely subtle ways.
I would recommend The Lovely Bones because it was one of the most powerful novels I have ever read. Anyone who has experienced a loss, and even those who are fortunate to have not, should read this novel because it gives such a wonderful perspective of heaven and how the dead continue to stay with the living. I feel that Sebold's original take on heaven is refreshing and sheds a hopeful light on tragedy and death. The Lovely Bones is a unique, heartbreaking novel that shows the true effects of loss and life changing events.
Summary of The Lovely Bones
This deluxe trade paperback edition of Alice Sebold's modern classic features French flaps and rough-cut pages.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 a book - a phenomenal #1 bestseller celebrated at once for its narrative artistry, its luminous clarity of emotion, and its astoniishing power to lay claim to the hearts of millions of readers around the world.
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on eath continue without her - her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling.
Out of unspeakable traged and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy
"A stunning achievement." -The New Yorker
"Deeply affecting. . . . A keenly observed portrait of familial love and how it endures and changes over time." -New York Times
"A triumphant novel. . . . It's a knockout." -Time
"Destined to become a classic in the vein of To Kill a Mockingbird. . . . I loved it." -Anna Quindlen
"A novel that is painfully fine and accomplished." -Los Angeles Times
"The Lovely Bones seems to be saying there are more important things in life on earth than retribution. Like forgiveness, like love." -Chicago Tribune
On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey.
Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue."
The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Look Inside the Motion Picture The Lovely Bones (Paramount, 2010)
(Click on each image below to see a larger view)
 Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon |  Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon |
 Mark Wahlberg as Jack Salmon |  Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon and Director Peter Jackson |
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