The Lovely Bones
Review

Review by Queenie D

Lovely Bones REVIEW

Susie Salmon is raped and murdered on her way home from school when she is 14 years old. Her family and friends are devastated. The killer nervously covers his tracks. The focus is on Susie's afterlife and how she begins to deal with being dead while watching her family go to pieces without her.

Lovely Bones Review - QUEENIE D SAYS

I could write pages upon pages about The Lovely Bones. You know how a book sometimes comes along and really has an impact on you - dare I say - changes your life? Well this book was it for me.

I got a battered copy of the book from a friend and sat down one Thursday evening to read. I sat down and didn't get up for the 5 hours it took me to finish the book. I cried, no bawled, my way through the beginning (to the point where my now husband gently suggested that I perhaps take a break), laughed in the middle, pounded my fist on the armrest in frustration at least 10 times, cried some more, and found peace by the end. All those reviewers and sites out there that want to put this book down can only be doing so because they are jealous.

Alice Sebold has written a masterpiece. Susie's rape and murder scene is horrific, terrifying, and breathtaking. As morbid as it sounds I felt like I was right there with Susie because it was so real. It is obvious that Sebold has experienced terror of this sort first hand.

The anguish I felt when Susie says "I knew he was going to kill me" (14) is only the beginning of heartache. As Fanny, her intake counselor, coaches her through acceptance, Lindsey, Buckley, and Mr. and Mrs. Salmon fall apart. The story is as much about their lives after Susie's death as it as about Susie's heaven. And that brings me to the part that really touched me. The idea that heaven is your own, that you create it and "live" in it as you imagine it would be is an amazing thought. Whereas I pictured lots of angels sitting on clouds (and maybe a celebrity or two walking around in white), Sebold opens our minds to the possibility that heaven is way more advanced than we can imagine. I still wonder if she might in fact be right.

If you read you should read this. There is no particular type of audience, no "you'll like this only if..." - it's all around one of the most fabulous books I've had the pleasure to read.

Lovely Bones DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What was the most unique thing about Susie's heaven?

Who handled Susie's death the best? Who handled it the worst?

What would your heaven be like?

Return to Queenie D's Book Club Recommendation Shelf

Queenie D's Book Reviews

The Abstinence Teacher, The Almost Moon, Before You Know Kindness, Burning Bright, The Choice, City of Falling Angels, Comfort Food, Dahlia's Gone, Deadly Exchange, The Debs, Devil in the White City, Drowning Ruth, Forgive Me, Forced Mate, Freezer Burn, The Friday Night Knitting Club, The Glass Castle, Gods in Alabama, House of Sand and Fog, In Firm Pursuit, The Last Summer (of You & Me), The Lovely Bones, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe, Matrimony, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Murder on the Down Low, The Other Boleyn Girl, Paris Bound, Queen of Broken Hearts, The Reincarnationist, Ripples on the Lake, The Safety of Secrets, shoe addicts Anonymous, Some Nerve, The Thief Taker, The Trophy Exchange, Veil of Roses, What the Dead Know, Who Killed My Daughter, The Wisdom of Yawdy Rum, The Woods.