I cannot count how many times I had to look away from the page I was on, drawing in breath sharply as Susie’s pain and the pain of her family and friends burned into me. Alice Sebold‘s prose is powerful; if you’re not careful, The Lovely Bones will knock you flat on your back.
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
There were parts where I could not bear to mark the page and put the book down, which led to me spending a couple of nights reading until four in the morning. I greedily took in page after page, desperate to know whether Susie’s killer would be caught or if her body would be found.
However, there were also long stretches of nearly nothing happening, contributing to making this novel hard to read. While Susie’s thoughts about her heaven and the trains she rode on Earth and the Evensong were interesting, there was little action during these parts. It was during these stretches that I would mark my place and go back to work or whatever I was doing before the siren call of the book made me pick it up.
There were a few things that really jumped out at me throughout reading, and I’d like to share them with you.
On page 249, Ruth writes in her journal that “booze affects material as it does people,” after observing that alcohol stained her black clothing an even deeper black. I thought this was an incredibly interesting perception, adding even more depth to the novel itself and to Ruth’s character.
I liked how Sebold tied together Susie’s and Lindsey’s childhood game of knight and widow with the dynamics of the relationship between Susie’s parents. Susie muses over Lindsey’s favorite line from their game — “How can I be expected to be trapped for the rest of my life by a man frozen in time?” — on page 276.
I did not like Ruth’s out-of-body experience and temporary trade with Susie. I thought it added an ethereal feel to a novel that had, up until then, been mostly rooted outside of fantasy and focused more on what happened to a family after the loss of a child.
I was not at all impressed with the ending. In fact, I was very disappointed by it. I felt that I had stuck with the book through some very painful parts, and that it was a miracle that I had been able to get through those parts. I thought that I deserved a much better conclusion for being so loyal through such grievous subject matter. Susie’s subtle revenge and the final lines of the novel itself were highly anticlimactic for a novel that — for the most part — kept me turning page after page.
Still, it was a great book. Sebold is an amazing writer, evoking your emotions even if you haven’t experienced losing a child. The Lovely Bones is actually Sebold’s first novel, which is surprising because I would have thought — from the expertly paramount writing — that she had written dozens before sitting down to make The Lovely Bones come to life.
Glad to know you loved this novel. I read about three years ago, but it’s been stuck in me since then. It’s a wonderful, beautiful book that left me breathless long after I parted with it.
And then her second novel, The Almost Moon, I freakin’ threw across the room. Sigh.
It hasn’t left me yet, either.
Did The Almost Moon piss you off that much?
I’m definitely going to be reading this
Thanks Liz!
Great, let me know what you think of it!!
I just finished the book last night. It was a decent book but I felt like it jumped all over the place, I really didn’t like that it wasn’t in any type of order. Ruth’s out of body experience also irritated me, after all it’s just not realistic and it creeped me out in a way that I have never felt before, especially since “Susie” had the few moments of intimacy with Ray… It was really odd to me that a girl raped and then murdered still wanted to have a sexual experience as she did. Don’t get me wrong… I understand having intimate moments after rape with someone you love… But again it was beyond unrealistic. There was quite a few other moments within the book that I was just blown away. I mean Sebold felt the need to put in there that Abigail had an affair but she just brushed the surface of it, and for it to feel real she needed to put in some more details. I think I expected more than it gave. Overall it was a good book, would I recommend it? Yes, but it was still not a favorite.
Also I was VERY disappointed with the ending, like with how everything went down with Mr. Harvey. I did appreciate Lindsey naming her daughter half after her sister but I didn’t understand why after Abigail. That is not real at all in my opinion.
Yeah, what was up with Mr. Harvey? So anticlimactic! I wanted him caught, tried, and punished. The icicle thing was just not enough. I thought we deserved a body being discovered and a real case closed kind of ending, to tie up all of the loose ends. I mostly enjoyed the book itself, but the ending pissed me off, and still does.
I agree that it could have been better. For all of the moments that I was swept away, there were one or two moments where the story dragged on or didn’t give enough.
This book was a great read. It gave us a lot more than just a murder mystery and I really enjoyed it. I do agree that it gets really slow at some points and you are just sitting there wondering when something will happen. Overall, Sebold did a good job of getting into our emotions.
She really did! She pretty much ripped into my emotions.