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Loading... The Lovely Bones (original 2002; edition 2009)by Alice Sebold
Work InformationThe Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2002)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. The Lovely Bones is a remarkable and gently moving feat of POI sustained by an omniscience that, at the beginning, I suspected would run its course and fall flat â but it didn't. We not only watch a murderer at work but also see the consequences of the crime on family, friends and community. These were the lovely bones that had grown round my absence: the connections â sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent â that happened after I was gone. (p. 320) It's a story where love and presence are the binding forces in a world where absence is manifestly present. Where people and ordinary things, even suburban lives, can vanish in literal or metaphorical sinkholes. Where relationships matter Her journal was her most important relationship. It held everything. (p.252) The more I reflect on this book, the more intricately constructed it becomes. Some writers donât know how to end a book Alice Sebold does: powerful yet understated. A masterpiece! Narrated by a very intelligent fourteen-year-old, Susie Salmon, this story opens with her violent death in a cornfield at the hands of a quietly deranged man, George Harvey. She narrates the story from heaven, a place that continually changes as she matures and watches her family's struggles and accomplishments on earth. Reeling from the grisly crime and not having closure to their daughter's death, Susie's parents have a difficult time coming to terms with this situation, and as a result, their marriage and relationships with their other two children suffer. This story is compassionately told, and the reader quickly feels close to Susie and her family. All of the characters in this small town are interesting and add their own flavor to this intriguing story. Although there's a sad undertone throughout, there are also hints of humor, hope, and love. At times, this was a difficult book to stomach, because of the gruesome nature of George Harvey's life. But overall, it was an excellent book with memorable characters and a masterful plot. It's a quick, mesmerizing read, that leaves you wanting to learn more about Susie's life in her heaven--a mysterious and very interesting place. I'd recommend this book for its unique perspective and its honest look at the effect death has on the people a deceased person leaves behind on earth.
Sebold's compelling and sometimes poetic prose style and unsparing vision transform Susie's tragedy into an ultimately rewarding novel. Although some sections tend toward melodrama... other passages are dreamy and lyrical. Most striking is Sebold's mastery of a teenager's voice, from such small details as Susie's Strawberry-Banana Kissing Potion to her completely believable thought processes. An extraordinary, almost-successful debut that treats sensational material with literary grace, narrated from heaven by the victim of a serial killer and pedophile. Don't start "Lovely Bones" unless you can finish it. The book begins with more horror than you could imagine, but closes with more beauty than you could hope for. Sebold takes an enormous risk in her wonderfully strange dĂŠbut novel: her narrator, Susie Salmon, is deadâmurdered at the age of fourteen by a disturbed neighborâand speaks from the vantage of Heaven. Such is the author's skill that from the first page this premise seems utterly believable... If in the end she reaches too far, the book remains a stunning achievement. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inHas the adaptationHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:"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 earth continue without her â?? her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even j No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The previous paragraph was my review left on Goodreads - what a teaser. This is a wonderful book, I heard it became a great movie as well (but Iâm always a fan of the book over the movie).
I appreciated how Ms. Sebold intertwined the present-day realism of the story with the heavenly thoughts of the victim; it pulls the reader in and leaves them wanting more.
A really, really good book. ( )