The Lovely Bones: Deluxe Edition
by Alice Sebold
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.99 You Save: $13.00 (77%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Lovely Bones: Deluxe Edition
Book Review: Not much more than a nice story...
Summary: 3 Stars
The main problem I have with `The Lovely Bones' is that it doesn't really connect to the reader. At least I had a really hard time connecting. The characters never meant anything to me. I just read page after page, hoping that eventually something or someone would strike me and I would feel invested in what I was reading, but instead I just turned yet another page, the void in my growing wider. It's not that the book is amateur in its construction, because it's not. Alice Sebold does a wonderful job creating her mood, setting her scene so-to-speak; it's just that this mood or scene is unfulfilling. I know that this book is raved about by many, professed to be a classic of all classics but I just don't see it. It's a sweet book, and in the end I will admit I felt a little something in the pit of my stomach, but it's nothing close to classic and nowhere close to astonishing or brilliant.
`The Lovely Bones' tells us the story of Susie Salmon, a young girl who is raped and murdered within the first few pages. This of course should be devastating, and I'm not saying that it isn't, but I just didn't feel the emotional pull I was expecting. When I read `Reservation Road' earlier this year I felt the pain and agony of losing a child. I felt the guilt and the blame and the self loathing that comes with not having the answers. When I read `Atonement' just a few months ago I felt so connected to these characters that by the books closing I was in tears. With `The Lovely Bones' I didn't get that feeling. Everything is so lighthearted here, even when bad things are happening, when Susie's family is falling apart inside and out it just seems so carefree as if it has no real impact. I don't want to give much away but I will say that even when people close to the victim, like say Susie's mother Abigail, do something unkind or selfish I still felt nothing, not remorse, not frustration, not understanding. Maybe this was because Susie seemed to feel nothing as she watched the events unfold from heaven.
I know that I'm in the minority here. I understand that but I can't and won't lie about my feelings on this novel. It's not a `bad' novel, but it is not a great one.
The story that is told is of the after effects of Susie's murder on her family. She watches from heaven as her killer slips through the fingers of the police, as the police search for her body and as her parents search for answers. She wants to help them, lead them in the right direction but she can only do so much. The novel tries to flesh out how this tragedy has affected the relationships of everyone around her, some growing stronger, some falling apart, and it succeeds...some of the time. If the tone of the novel had been a tad darker, a tad harsher then maybe it would have resonated more.
And don't even get me started on Harvey, the biggest cliché in the book (and this book is full of clichés come to think of it). His `killer' was so `been-there-done-that' and his `demise' was a HUGE let down.
There are moments in this novel that are beautiful, even if they are rare. A scene involving Susie in her heaven with another one of Harvey's victims is truly spellbinding, and an `out of body experience' towards the end is probably the highlight of the novel, but all in all there is little here that is truly memorable. There is a lot of hype surrounding this novel, and maybe if the hype was not there then this would have been a better experience, but I was expecting greatness and that's not what I got.
The most real character to me was that of Ruth, someone who wasn't even closely related to the victim yet became the closest person to her after the incident. Ruth's obsession with Susie's murder is the most engrossing and interesting aspect of the novel. If the whole novel had revolved around Ruth and her `gift' then it would have been more palatable.
Susie's family, much like Harvey, was one big cliché. None of these characters are anything knew to the whole `tragedy befell us' scenario. In fact Susie's parents Jack and Abigail deal with this situation much like Ethan and Grace did in the aforementioned `Reservation Road' except with different results. The tone within `Reservation Road' was much darker. As you watched Ethan and Grace drift apart you felt so much pain in your heart for them because you could feel them unraveling in the air of their son's death. With Jack and Abigail though you feel a bit confused and bewildered with their decisions, and the fact that time moves so fast towards the end we are never really brought into Abigail's world to understand her decisions. I actually hated her character. I felt no sympathy for her and yet I couldn't feel sympathy for Jack either. He just seemed like a moody mess. When his son Buckley goes off on him towards the end of the book I felt like shouting "Hallelujah" since it was about time someone kicked him in the butt.
Lindsey, of the family members, is probably the most realistic depiction of grief. She handles it much like you would expect someone would. If only the rest of the family were `normal' like she was.
I know it seems like I'm bashing this novel entirely, and I'm sure that most people are going to dog this review as well, but I have to speak my opinion and I hope that you can take this for what it is and maybe this review will be of some use to you. Ultimately we all have to make up our own minds on a matter. Maybe the lighthearted feel of `The Lovely Bones' is just what you need, or like me, maybe you are put off by it's mood and tone. I'm glad I read the novel but it did not have the impact I expected it to. It's a nice sweet story, but in the end that's about it.
Book Review: A Story For The Soul
Summary: 5 Stars
Some books are worth reading multiple times and "The Lovely Bones" is a perfect example. I've just finished my second reading, my first having transpired almost seven years ago. Due to the vast period of time between those two readings, it was like reading it for the first time and I dare say that the second go-round was more stirring than the first.
The story is told from the perspective of 14-year old Susie Salmon. It begins on the day of her rape and murder by her reclusive neighbor George Harvey and continues in the aftermath of her death as her family grieves, Harvey hides and local police unsuccessfully attempt to locate her remains and convict her killer. The novel spans eight years (beginning in 1973), Susie watching from her own personal version of heaven (hers always smells lightly of skunk, a neighboring soul's version like kumquats) as her mother and father grow apart, her sister Lindsey withdraws and her brother Buckley continues to feel her absence as he makes the transition from boy to young man. In addition to her family, Susie follows the happenings of her crush Ray Singh and a poet and artist named Ruth Connors who has an inexplicable connection to her. While pining for another coveted kiss with Ray and longing for her time back on Earth, Susie makes heartbreaking observations on how her death encourages the tightening of bonds between certain members of her family and community while tearing others apart.
Each character is fully fleshed out. Whereas most novels tend to concentrate on only a select few characters, author Alice Sebold invests a generous amount of personification in almost all of them. Susie's mentality goes from girl to woman in the time she spends watching and ruminating on her family's actions, at one point getting to experience that womanhood in a way she never imagined. Her mother Abigail is a dreamer, her wildness contained by domesticity, and after Susie's death she is a woman just going through the motions. Her emotional disconnect thereafter finds her having an affair followed by a move out west, voluntarily estranging herself from her husband and surviving children for years. Susie's father Jack grieves for her openly and often, something which makes it difficult for him to move on and his grief is made all the more affecting by Abigail's physical and emotional distance. Lindsey is a rock; already in the angst-ridden valley of adolescence, she sinks even deeper into disquiet, choosing neither to show nor share her personal agony with anyone. Buckley, only four at the time of Susie's death, begins to see as he matures how grief has weighed his family down and though equally saddened by his sister's passing becomes demonstrative about the importance of moving on when one day, much to his father's shock, he attempts to use Susie's clothes to fashion stakes for the tomato plants in his vegetable garden.
Sebold paints a most chilling portrait of George Harvey with his quiet demeanor, an aloofness coupled with an invented status as a widower the ideal facade for his perverse machinations. The reader is given a disturbing evolution of his unnatural urges and his habitual killing is made all the more unsettling by his composure and critical thinking throughout the entire process. The creepiness factor reaches an all-time high when Sebold has him reflecting on Susie's murder one evening while taking a shower, the author smothering his meditation with twisted pleasure: "As he scoured his body in the hot water of his suburban bathroom...he felt thoughts of me then. My muffled scream in his ear. My delicious death moan. The glorious white flesh that had never seen the sun, like an infant's, and then split, so perfectly, with the blade of his knife. He shivered under the heat, a prickling pleasure creating goose bumps up and down his arms and legs." (pg. 50)
The novel has many poignant moments, particularly when Susie travels to a special part of heaven and meets all of Harvey's other victims, the girls shedding tears as they share their stories. For me, it was the rekindling of affections between Jack and Abigail that moved me to tears as well as Abigail's absolution as she stood in Susie's room, grieving for her one last time as she professed her love. Sebold draws upon her own harrowing experience (which she wrote about extensively and graphically in her 1999 memoir "Lucky") for the catalyst of this story, her memories and feelings channeled through her protagonist (Sebold was raped at knife-point in an underground tunnel, and a girl who had been raped at that location prior to her was murdered and dismembered). It is with this realization that "The Lovely Bones" ceases to be just a well-written and unconventional novel about a restless spirit - it becomes a subtle yet rousing exploration of the author's own soul.
Bottom line: Great contemporary fiction doesn't come better than this. Sebold has a way with words which few authors possess and "The Lovely Bones" will have you ruminating on the possibilities of life after death as well as the perseverance of the people we will inevitably leave behind.
Book Review: Dead--like the character.
Summary: 1 Stars
**Spoiler Alert!**
First of all, let me say this. I really wanted to love The Lovely Bones. But I didn't. I didn't like it very much.
This comes as a surprise to me, because while I was reading it, I found it almost impossible to put down. It was cryptic and mysterious. The problem is that at the end, it still felt cryptic and mysterious--like I'd missed something. I felt throughout the book that I'd find a plot line, or a key, or something, and it would all fit together perfectly. But it didn't. The writing was hard to read, and I had to really focus to understand the words. The plot was very original and creative, but there just seemed to be something missing through the whole book. When I got to the end, I was very disappointed.
I didn't feel engaged in The Lovely Bones. I felt like an outsider looking in. I related to the characters on a certain level--but then again I felt totally disconnected and withdrawn while reading.
I didn't at all like what happened to Mr. Harvey. He needed to be caught and put in jail, or killed by the father, or something a little more than getting an icicle in his back and falling into a ravine. His death was very unsatisfactory.
I didn't like the end at all. As I said earlier, it felt like something was missing. I got to the end and said "Hu? Did I miss something? Maybe I skipped some pages, or missed a paragraph..." and literally flipped back through the past few pages. Nothing. It was like the end of a chapter, not the end of a book. There are unanswered questions sitting right in front of you, and there are blank endings for some of the characters. By blank I mean empty, like it's not an ending at all. Like there is another few chapters to read and then maybe it will all make sense.
As I said above, find it very difficult to stop until I got about halfway through. When I got to the halfway point, it started to feel like it wasn't going anywhere and I put it off for about a month. The book felt like it was boring, and dead like Susie. The mystery wasn't going to be solved. It got old. Blech.
But some of it was very fast paced and exciting, and the characters are very well developed. The dialogue flows freely and comfortably.
Also, however painful Mrs. Salmon's leaving was, and watching the family get torn apart, it was beautiful in the end when she came back. And I loved the interaction between the characters, and I loved the characters themselves. Lindsey and Samuel were wonderful, and her baby was wonderful, and the grandma was wonderful. Poor, sweet little Buckley who grows up too fast and too hard...
So I rest closer to the negative side than the positive side. This was a good (depending on your definition) book--I just wasn't connected to it. There were some things that I liked about The Lovely Bones. However, most of it I didn't like. If I'm not connected to a book, how can I read it? Will I read this one again? probably not. Will I read the sequel? Not unless I get it in the mail for review and I'm really really bored.
I wish I could say more good things about this book. I wanted to love it. My friends all loved it and my mom loved it. But it felt odd and foreign and uncomfortable to me, and the ending was awful. If you consider it an ending.
Audio Review: The audio-book was read by the author, who read incredibly slow and seemingly forced. Wouldn't an author take some joy in reading their book out loud, even if it was as depressing as this one? wouldn't the author, of all people, read with a little more energy? Alice sounded tired. Tired of her book, tired of Susie and Lindsey and Mr. Salmon and everyone else. If you're going to read The Lovely Bones, read The Lovely Bones.
Book Review: Lovely literature
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Tammy Petty Conrad for Reader Views (11/07)
This is one of those books I knew I should have already read. Everyone had been talking about it. I knew it would be a good read and worth the time, but somehow it hadn't made it to the top of my pile on the nightstand. Besides, who wants to read about a fourteen-year-old girl being raped and murdered? As a mother of a teenager, it was a topic I wanted to avoid.
But from the beginning of the story I was mesmerized. The victim, Susie Salmon, like the fish, as the author says, tells the story beginning with her brutal demise and carries on throughout the years watching her family, friends and strangers from her version of heaven. She becomes the proverbial "fly on the wall" and shares all that she sees. In the beginning we eavesdrop on the mind of a child as she becomes aware of the danger she is in and that she won't be surviving. As a parent, it is not easy to read, but the scene is so well written that you will continue to turn the pages even as your stomach turns.
Sebold creates a new version of heaven with roommates and different sections to live in. We learn that it is not a perfect place giving us all that we desire. It really made me think about what it might be like and whether members of my own family were above watching me as I stroll through my own story.
The villain, Mr. Harvey, is known from the beginning of the story. Susie not only follows her family from above, but she follows her killer's movements. It felt like being in the mind of a pedophile watching the deliberateness of his actions and the incredible patience he displayed as he waited, sometimes for years, for his next victim. He was truly the man down the street that nobody suspected expect the father overwhelmed with grief. Shivers raced up my spine when I read "He had killed animals, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child."
As we might expect, the family takes Susie's death very hard. The gift of this novel is that it shares how each member of the family reacts and internalizes this horrible event. No one is the same and as we might imagine, the death of a child is not the end of tragedy for the Salmons.
Even school friends and their reactions are woven into the plot line. Ruth, a mere acquaintance takes on a major role as the story develops. There is the Indian boy, Ray, who is at first accused of the crime and his mother, Runa Singh, whose lives become intermingled in the Salmon's as the book develops. She is almost as interesting as the saucy, often soused, grandma who becomes the glue of the family.
The writer's style is simple and yet eloquent. She delves into Susie's desire and attainment of her first kiss. Prior to her death, that was the only sexual experience Susie had had. She goes on to watch the interactions between those left behind and even in death she is able to blossom into a woman in an amazing scene that I won't reveal. The author explains the urges of one character as "...a desire beyond the sweetness and attention, it fed a longing, beginning to flower green and yellow into a crocus-like lust, the soft petals opening into her awkward adolescence."
Not only do we learn how interdependent people are, but we also learn that usually people can overcome most anything. It doesn't happen easily or even the way we might expect. But it happens, over time. And just as Susie learns in "The Lovely Bones," we too understand that connections with others can be miraculous.
Book Review: If you liked The Lovely Bones...
Summary: 4 Stars
try "Forgiving Ararat" by Gita Nazareth. "Forgiving Ararat" Forgiving Araratis a unique and inspiring afterlife adventure! The book's heroine is Brek Cuttler, a 31-year-old lawyer, wife and mother who happens to be recently deceased. Leaving behind her new baby daughter and her TV reporter husband, Brek suddenly finds herself sitting in a deserted train station, not yet aware of her own passing. She meets Luas, who reveals she has come to a place called Shemaya, the place between life and death, Heaven and Hell. Luas looks like a combination of people she knows; he appears to each soul as they expect or desire to see him. In fact, much of what Brek sees is only because it's what she wants to see. When she wants, she sees herself dressed in her favorite black silk suit but alternately she's naked and bloody, three bullet holes in her chest. She can't remember how she died and won't until she's ready.
We travel with Brek as she explores Shemaya, a place where all four seasons exist at once, where her long-dead great-grandmother waits with open arms, where God judges arriving souls and decides their eternal fate. Luas tells Brek she is to join his team of elite lawyers, charged with representing souls in the Final Judgment. As she clings desperately to her earthly life, in agony longing for her family, she struggles with her new job in the afterlife. To learn her new trade, she observes the trials of other souls, viewing glimpses of their lives through their own eyes. As she watches their lives unfold, connections form, leading her to solve the mystery of her own death. Meantime, she recalls pivotal moments in her own life; she puts childhood friends "on trial" for crayfish murder, she struggles to accept her parents' divorce, and she confesses her deepest and darkest secret. And we see it is justice she's been after since childhood, that's why she became a lawyer. And it is justice she seeks in death.
Religious themes are prevalent throughout the novel, mostly Judeo-Christian with some hints of Buddhism. Raised Catholic, Brek is drawn to Judaism, the religion of her husband. With Brek we visit the Garden of Eden and sway on the deck with Noah. And it is the afterlife after all, so she eats whatever she wants without gaining an ounce, she shops without money, she climbs mountains without breaking a sweat, and she travels to whatever destination she imagines. Well-drawn characters from her life and those she meets after death are woven in adding to the suspense.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The author drew me in so deeply, I felt Brek's emotions as if they were my own. The author creates an image of the afterlife that is altogether beautiful, frightening, gory, inspiring, mysterious, joyful and sad. I think anyone regardless of their beliefs, can gain something from this book. It's a murder mystery, supernatural thriller and a theological debate all rolled into one. Clever and imaginative, "Forgiving Ararat" is a fulfilling read!