The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – 328 pages
Book Blurb:
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.
My Review: 4.5 stars
The Lovely Bones may be one of the quickest books to get hooked into from the very first page. Author Sebold has sold the reader from the get-go and the story that follows is truly remarkable.
An unusual choice of narrator, one who is deceased, is an unlikely voice but one who shares her version of Heaven as well as how her murder has taken something from everyone she knew and loved.
This is a depressing and dark book but also an interesting and unique read. Oprah was right on for choosing this for her book club as it will make a fascinating discussion.
Quotes I liked:
There wasn’t a lot of bullshit in my heaven.”
-“A father’s suspicion… Is as powerful as a mother’s intuition.”
-“Heaven is comfort, but it’s still not living.”
Shop on Amazon Here!
I loved this book! It is dark and difficult subject matter, but I heard Susie’s voice and could visualize her heaven.
Favorite quote:”… the dead truly talk to us, that in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe.”
– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
Great quote you pulled Deanne! It was a wonderful book!!!