An absolutely beautiful novel. I have a feeling I'll be reading this one again soon. ( )

this book jwas a great book.. i like this book because it kept me on my toe wondering whats goin to happenn next. this book was about a young girl who went missing and no one knows what happen to her. She htells her story from haven and knows who killed her and want to tell her father that he's right in front of hem but she can'tg talk from haven. So the dad try to figure it out by hemself because he don't think the cope are trying hard.. So he thinks it's the person who lives next door.. But don't have any proof.

A great, literary book about a teen's murder. The act of the murder is just the first chapter; the rest of the book focuses in on how she, her family and loved ones cope with her death. ( )

Great Book - for me it starts out a little on the boring side but evolves into a suspenseful and dramatic read.

When a novel begins with a murder, you naturally expect a murder mystery. The Lovely Bones isn't one, not really. Only a small portion of the story is devoted to the search for the killer. It's really a tale of the slow disintegration, and ultimately, healing of a family as the members try to cope with loss and succeed or fail in their own way, and of the slow letting go of a lost child.

I bought this book on a whim after reading a plot summary for the upcoming movie and was pleasantly surprised. The story follows the afterlife of fourteen year old Susie Salmon after her brutal rape and murder as well as the lives of those she left behind. The ending may leave some readers unsatisfied, but overall it's a very worth-while read. ( )

The bones of it is that the story is a good rainy day book but the ending is...well...missing something......the story is solid but the details are lacking. I enjoyed it and would recommend it, with the disclaimer that it leaves you unsatisfied at the end. ( )

I loved the beginning of this book: The first few chapters were great. After that, however, the story drags on and unfortunately never gets any better. I had some trouble getting through the middle part of the book; it was just plain boring. The ending was also a disappointment. There are a few good points, but I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone.

Not the worst book I've ever read, but not the best either. ( )

I had heard great reviews about this book and I had been meaning to read it for a while, and yet I dd not enjoy it very much. I found it rather depressing throughout and I felt the ending was unsatisfactory. I was expecting some great revelation on how Susie's murderer was captured and the fact that he was hit by an icicle and fell into a ravine seemed ridiculous. I also didn't like the part where Susie somehow inhabits her friend's body so that she can lose her virginity to her highschool crush. After that it seemed like her life was then 'fulfilled' and she could finally be at peace. It just seemed shallow and just plain strange.I guess the only part that was somewhat interesting was the author's concept of heaven, how everyone's heaven is what makes them most happy and that you only share your heaven with other people who enjoy the same kinds of things. Even though this was thought provoking, the overall depressing mood and unfulfilling ending left me unsatisfied. ( )

I enjoyed this novel, but I can't say I was satisfied by it. The ending left a lot to be desired--it lacked the closure that I wanted. Still, it was a good read--the narration was well-written, and poignant at parts. I would definitely read another book by this author. ( )

The Lovely Bones was such a mesmorizing book I didn't want it to end. Skirting the borderlands between human reality and the imagined wonders of heaven, I felt I had been introduced to a world both startingly tangible yet ethereal all the same. Since then, I have been looking for further excursions into the afterworld, but I haven't found much, until now.
Recently I read Gita Nazareth's Forgiving Ararat. This book too explores the interconnections between the land of the living and the land of the dead. As a publicist and a fan of this book, I'm interested to see what parallels are drawn between the two. ( )

A book that gives me hope that someone's spirit stays after they have passed. ( )

This is a book I will likely read again as I think the place my life is now is just the wrong one for being able to appreciate this book. I didn't love it, didn't hate it. ( )

Ultimately, The Lovely Bones wound up on a very, very short pile in my room: books that remain eternally unfinished because they were so incredibly unengaging that really, all things considered, I'd prefer to be watching paint dry.

http://stuff-ive-read.blogspot.com/20... ( )

This has become one of my favorite books because of the unique perspective of the narrator. It is definitely hard to recommend to other people and make it sound enjoyable!

This book locks you in from the beginning. Susie Salmon is murdered by her own next door neighboor at the very start of the book. From then on the main point of view is from Susie, who is dead the whole time in the book. She watches her family grieve her death as well as try to hunt for Mr. Harvey, her terrible murderer. She followes her family members through grief and into the rest of their lives. It's a heart wrenching story of an innocent girl just trying to find peace and let her old life go. So many surprises, twists and turns. Good book!

It took me at least three months to start this book. So many people told me to read it and it came highly recommended. All in all, it was worth it. Well written, strong and heartbreaking, The Lovely Bones is a great thriller. I am curious to see if the movie holds up to the book. ( )

Fourteen year old Susie Salmon was murdered on one cold afternoon in 1973. Now watching over her family from her heaven Susie watches her family first struggle with her disappearance then eventually dealing with the fact that she was murdered. She sees the way her death affects her friends, her killer and her family all the while struggling to make herself appear to them and even succeeds at times. From her death to ten years later Susie narrates it all in the haunting voice of a young girl on the verge of becoming a woman.

The major motion picture version of The Lovely Bones, directed by Peter Jackson and starring Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Saoirse Ronan is scheduled for release on December 11, 2009 and I can’t wait. This was an amazing story yet I can’t seem to be able to picture how everything will play out on the big screen. It’ll be interesting to see how everything is done.

This is definitely different from anything I’ve read this year and I highly recommend it for anyone who loves contemporary fiction. ( )

This was my first Sebold book. To tell the truth I thought I was going to get one of the typical suspense books that I have read a hundred times before. This book however was very well written. I love how it was done from the dead persons point of view from heaven. The idea that our loved ones are actually watching us like we all hope they are at some point, and in a place that is everything you ever dreamed of, is very comforting. I know this is a fiction book, but it is one that for many reasons makes you think of all those you have ever lost, and then want to tell them they are always with you.
Please read this book with an open heart and and open mind, as it will touch you in a special way. ( )

I had high hopes about this one when I started it, but it just kept getting worse and worse. The whole second part, the denouement, just dragged on. I was just skimming it to get through by the end. ( )

I heard rave reviews of this book, and resisted reading it because of the sad subject. I finally did break down and read it, and it is a wonderful book and well worth reading.

The Lovely bones was a book just as haunting as it was mundane. When looking over the cover and reading the little one word reviews, "Mesmerizing," "Savagely beautiful," etc. I can't help but feel that while the books indeed held some of these moments, it had just as many bland moments.

The approach was interesting, a look at a family's life from the view of their murdered daughter, but overall I felt it came up short. While some times this made for a lovely picture, in the end I don't think it was as original as it set it out to be. All in all, still an enjoyable read. ( )

If I have trouble starting a book review, I normally just write down a list of thoughts and phrases that cross my mind while thinking back on what I've just read. For The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, it was more a list of words: Brutal. Sad. Uplifting. Family. Loss. Heaven. Rebirth.

This book is so many things, but what stands out the most to me is its originality. This is the story of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who is raped and murdered by one of her neighbors in the 1970s. Susie narrates from heaven the story of her murder, her family and friends trying to cope with their loss, and her own journey through the afterlife. At the same time tragic, disturbing, and beautiful, Sebold creates an idea of what happens to those we've lost in an original voice.

I really enjoyed this novel. While it's not something I would normally pick up due to its subject matter, I'm glad I did. I actually had this on my To Be Read list before I knew about the movie, but the trailer I saw made me want to pick it up that much faster. Now, after having read it, I think they're going to need to change some major aspects of the book to make it a good movie. This is because there's little action in the second half of the book. Most of the cliff-hanger/page-turning aspects are in the first half. But even after most of the action is gone, you care about the characters enough that finishing the second half is easy. I wanted to know if the family could ever heal from such a tragic loss, and I wanted to know if Susie would get her wish.

4 out of 5 stars. Not my favorite book of the year, but definitely one worth reading. ( )

interesting approach to tell a story by havign the dead girl watch her family, but I could not completly connect with them and not all it made sense. Ending was kind of weak. ( )

2003