The Lovely Bones

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 – 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 – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent – 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

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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 don’t know how to end a book Alice Sebold does: powerful yet understated. A masterpiece! show less

This book was well timed in my life. It's been on my list for almost three years, and I finally picked it up from the library just before my husband got laid off. Watching Sebold's characters navigate the new terrain of their lives without Susie helped me to identify what I was feeling in the wake of that personal crisis as grief.

I do not want to imply that the loss of a job and the loss of a child are anything near the same level of experience, but I think they have some common elements. There's a redefining of one's role and meaning, like Abigail said she told people she had two children but said in her mind that she had three (and hoped that wasn't disrespectful to Susie). There's coping with a change in routine, as when Buckley show more began spending so much time at his friend Nate's house, and at the same time coping with all of the things that continue on regardless of how we feel, like Jack going to work every day and trying to act normal. There's trying to explain these differences to young children while also trying to deal with one's own emotions, which left Abigail wanting to just escape her children and her family.

While it wasn't an entirely analogous situation, it felt familiar to me.

Not only was this story poignant to me on a personal level, but it was beautifully written. Using the deceased's point of view allowed Sebold to employ both a first-person narrator and omniscient perspective. I can't think of any other books that employ this perspective.

Sebold's language painted a vivid image of Pennsylvania as corporate development began encroaching on open spaces and historic locations. Throughout the book, the landscape is one of both familiarity and danger: gathering wildflowers along the edges of a massive sinkhole. The juxtaposition helps build tension and makes the resolution all the more effective.

I find myself conflicted about the ending. Some things happened that I thought were either just wacky or rather contrived, and other things that I wanted to happen didn't. It wasn't bad, though. I don't know how I would have ended it differently.

Overall this was a rich and satisfying read. show less

I read this book long after it was published, initially thinking that it was going to be a gruesome murder story. Was I ever surprised. I've read it several time since buying it and shared it with my shrink and grief counselor to let him know which one in the family I most identified with. This could have easily been a maudlin, depressing downer, but Sebold's injecting the spiritual lifted this truly original story to joyful heights.

If you've never experienced the death of someone you loved more than yourself, you might not burrow as deeply into this book as others. But it will stick, and you'll pick it up again sometime.

This is the sort of book that takes you by the throat and hold you in a death grip like Darth Vader. I say this because there are times when I could not breathe while reading The Lovely Bones because I was either actively holding my breath, or choking on the different expressions of heartbreak. In truth, every emotion (think stages of grief) floats just under the icy surface of reality as a dead girl narrates "life" after murder. Susie Salmon was an ordinary girl who knew right from wrong; knew the man in the cornfield wasn't quite right, but yet curiosity got the better of her. Now, she is suspended in this alternate universe of "heaven" while watching her family, friends, and community cope with her murder. In her heaven, reality is a show more school-like atmosphere while she blandly looks down on the world she left behind. She is unmoved when her mother seeks a drastic remedy for grief, or when her would-be boyfriend almost finds her body.
What impressed me the most about The Lovely Bones was the end. Sebold did not feel pressured to give into a Hollywood ending. It might be a spoiler alert, but the ending is more realistic than what you would see in a movie. I'm alright with that. show less

The Lovely Bones
This book is wonderful. I read this totally connected to every word. Some passages I had to read over and over because they so beautifully depicted the state of being of a particular character in a moment in time that had me knowing exactly how that person came to be. It’s about a girl, who get’s murdered as a young teenager, and she narrates the story from heaven as she looks down and watches her family, friends, and killer all deal with Life after her death. Told in her perspective as she observes them, is able to hear their thoughts, and even feel their feelings, whilst still being herself, and coming to terms with her own death, with what her Life meant. She is able to know them in a way that she never would have show more been able to had she still been alive, living her own life, as opposed to now living vicariously through them somehow.

It explores various aspects about how the living are with the dead, some seeing them, sensing them, ignoring them, trying to erase their memory, trying to claim their lives back and not be seen as the sister/mother/brother of a dead girl… Even inside the head and life of the killer is a heart wrenching experience. The author inhabited every single character in this book, and told me, experientially, what it feels like to be that person in that moment in time.

Even though this book is narrated by a dead girl, it’s about living. It’s about Life (for the living) after death. show less

Susie Salmon, was raped and murdered in 1973 and now resides in her heaven; yet, her voice contains none of the bitterness one would expect. She is able to see into the lives of those who touched her in life and death. At times wistful - for she will never be able to experience growing up - and others matter-of-fact, Susie witnesses the changes and growth within her family and small circle of friends. Her story is not one about death, but about loss and affirming life in its face, about moving on not only for those she left behind but for herself.

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 show more intriguing story. Although there's a sad undertone throughout, there are also hints of humor, hope, and love. Beautiful, enchanting, disturbing and very unique. show less

I read this book back in 2003. I remember buying the hardcover from a random book shop in D.C. (can't recall the name of the store) and started to read this book while on a bus heading back from the Pentagon metro stop. Within an hour I was in tears and just read it until I finished it sometime before dawn. This book grabbed me back when I was 23 and it still grabbed me more than a decade and a half later at 38. Sebold wrote this book in response to being raped and she takes all of that pain and anger and wrote something that I believe will eventually be considered a classic. That said there are some nits here and there in the book that don't work, she has the main character at one point inhabit someone's body and I don't even want to show more discuss it anymore cause it was weird and off-putting. The only really false step I got while reading this.

"The Lovely Bones" is about 14 year old Susie Salmon who tells you about how she came to be raped and murdered. Her bones (the lovely bones in this story) are hidden and her family has to deal with the fallout from her disappearance. When a part of Susie is eventually found, her family then has to deal with knowing she is murdered and nver coming home. Sebold provides updates on via Susie about her family, the man who raped and murdered her, as well as a boy she had a crush on before her death.

Susie's character was heartbreaking. Reading about her rape and murder was awful. You want to reach into the pages and keep her safe. I kept wishing for a different ending while reading this book. When Susie is gone, her soul races off to her own personal heaven and from there she keeps an eye on things. Parts of the book made me cry a lot. Reading about Susie meeting and hanging out with her grandfather and the other friends she makes in heaven are wonderful.

Susie's sister Lindsey is dealing with having suspicions on the man she believes killed her sister and trying to hold on to her family as they slowly disintegrate. The younger brother Buckley is having to adjust to having a family that he remembers before Susie disappeared to after where everything seems to be focused on her.

I didn't really like Susie's mother. I get people act to grief in different ways, but how she chose to deal with things made me feel sad. I do applaud Sebold though for not trying to sugarcoat things and also for the family to not rush to bring her back into the family fold.

The writing was poetic at times. Sebold has a very strong grasp of words. I could picture everything that was happening perfectly (sometimes too perfectly).

“My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.”

“Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.”

The flow for the most part was really good. Things just got slow towards the end in my opinion. You are just wanting to get to the end.

The setting of the book takes place in Pennsylvania in the 1970s and then through the next few decades.

The ending comes for a whisper almost with Susie starting to move on, but still watching her family. She wishes the reader a long and happy life. show less