The Lovely Bones -
The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder -- a murder recounted by the teenage victim. Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult material and delivers a compelling and accomplished exploration of a fractured family's need for peace and closure.The details of the crime are laid out in the first few pages: from her vantage point in heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was confronted by the murderer one December afternoon on her way home from school. Lured into an underground hiding place, she was raped and killed. But what the reader knows, her family does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie, aching for her grieving family, desperate for the killer to be found and punished.Sebold creates a heaven that's calm and comforting, a place whose residents can have whatever they enjoyed when they were alive -- and then some. But Susie isn't ready to release her hold on life just yet, and she intensely watches her family and friends as they struggle to cope with a reality in which she is no longer a part. To her great credit, Sebold has shaped one of the most loving and sympathetic fathers in contemporary literature.
Published: 2006-09-01 (Little, Brown and Company)
ISBN: 9780316166683
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 328 pages
Goodreads' rating: -
Reviews
The Lovely Bones has got to be the most baffling, poorly written, jaw-droppingly bad book that I have ever set my eyes on. It is truly a black, black tragedy that the words in this book were placed in that particular order, published, and distributed. How could this have ever possibly been popular? Is it for the same reason that the song My Humps hit number one? I mean, I dont technically believe in burning books, but this novel really got me thinking. About burning it.If it serves any use at all, it might be a perfect guide on how not to write a book. Here are some of my gripes, problems and issues that we can hopefully use to prevent something like this from ever happening again to us, our children, or our childrens children:It is filled with some of the worst sentence-level writing that I have ever encountered. From bad description to horrible grammar to utterly confusing metaphors, Sebold covered it all. A tell-tale way to spot a weak writer? They cant stop weirdly describing peoples eyes. Dont believe me? Try this sentence: Her eyes were like flint and flower petals. Or this one: The tears came like a small relentless army approaching the front lines of her eyes. She asked for coffee and toast in a restaurant and buttered it with her tears. Really? She buttered the coffee and toast with her tears? Or this one, this time about someones heart: Her heart, like a recipe, was reduced. What the hell?And heres my favorite eye description in the book: Her pupils dilated, pulsing in and out like small, ferocious olives. Thats right. Ferocious olives. Ive read MadLibs that make more sense than that.It seems to lack a plot. You know, that thing that books are supposed to have. Ill never forget my first workshop with Brady Udall, in which he threw my story onto the table and said, This isnt a story, Sarah, its a situation. And as much as I despaired when I got home, he was right. Sebold has the same problem: her book is a really long situation. A girl dies and watches her family from heaven. Okay. Thats nice. But what do the characters want? What drives the story forward? Nothing. The characters get older and keep bumping into each other. Things change, and things often do, but there is no forward movement and certainly no building of suspense.Since theres no plot, the ending is just a bunch of weird stuff happening. I read the last thirty pages on the train this morning, and couldnt stop a few outbursts: Oh, no she didnt! Id say, talking to Alice Sebold and her crazy ways. She is just plain bold when it comes to doing whatever she feels like, and she feels like doing the weirdest stuff ever. Its not that I dont want to write spoilers here, its that I cant even explain to you what happened at the end of the book. And I bet she cant either. Im not exaggerating.Her characters never have interesting or complex thoughts. Not even the serial killer or the mother whose daughter was murdered. It seems that Sebolds characters do one of two things: they laugh (which means they are happy) or cry (to butter their toast, somehow, when they are sad). As you might guess, there is a lot of laughing and crying in this book. When a character is confused, they laugh and cry at the same time. This also happens often.I feel a little better after venting. But Im still deeply sad and angry. I feel like my own writing might have been permanently damaged by reading this book like a couple of ferocious olives?
This is easily the worst book I've ever read in my entire life. SPOILER ALERT: She comes back from heaven to bang the guy she liked.If you like this book, then you hate literature. It's that simple. I'm not joking. Do not read this book.
I have no idea how so many people can love such a boring, pointless book. I don't read a lot of juggernaut pop-fiction, but at least with "DaVinci Code" I can see the appeal; this one's draw baffles me. Besides being uninteresting, there are two plot points that were just rancid:1. The mom suddenly deciding to return to her family when the dad has a heart attack.2. Susie possesses Ruth's body so she can fuck the med student. So if you die a virgin, God lets you back on Earth for a few hours to bang someone with another person's genitals, putting them at risk for an STD or unwanted pregnancy? What if you die as a toddler, do you still get to come back and fuck someone? Also, she says she doesn't want to go after her murderer while in the host, that's real fucking nice, Susie, the whole book's about you wishing you hadn't died and the strain it put on your family, and you'd rather take a dick in a bathtub then stop him from raping/killing more children. That's great. And that whole idea was a rip-off of the movie "Ghost," remember? If you're gonna plagiarize from a Patrick Swayze movie, please make it "Roadhouse."P.S. The real version of this book is called "Remember Me" by Christopher Pike which I read when I was ten.
Let me start this off by saying that I really wanted to like this book. Although the subject of a little girl being brutally raped and murdered is extremely disturbing I thought it would be interesting to read about her in the afterlife as she watched her family try to solve her murder.There is not much that I can even say without giving things away, but I did not like this book at all. I still had about 50 pages to go before I stopped reading this, and I may go back and finish it, but for now I just couldn't take any more. Everyone knows I am usually really into dark and disturbing books, but reading about her family moving on and knowing that the killer was right there was just something I could not handle. I felt very bored at certain parts too, and found my mind wandering, but I'm not sure if the book was genuinely boring or if my mind just wanted to escape the thoughts of it.About the rating. I did not give this one star because I felt it was a poorly written book or even a bad book. I know quite a few people who loved this book, and think of it as a 5 star gem, and I can understand why. It just wasn't for me.
What a disappointment. I had high hopes with this book. Anyway, though the author doesn't owe me anything, I did feel cheated of my hours invested in The Lovely Bones.Thematically, the book is a mess. The questions we have, both about events in heaven and on earth are left unanswered. I also found myself getting a bit depressed. I usually am like that whenever I read a bad book.But this time I got depressed because I was reading the Lovely Bones. Death is a pitiless side of our cognition, but the way it has been treated here is so underwhelming. Let's shake off this book and march on, shall we?