The Lovely Bones [Paperback]

Alice Sebold (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 20, 2004

When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief, her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; 1ST edition (April 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316168815
• ISBN-13: 978-0316168816
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3,424 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey.

Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue."

The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Look Inside the Motion Picture The Lovely Bones (Paramount, 2010)
(Click on each image below to see a larger view)

Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon

Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon

Mark Wahlberg as Jack Salmon

Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon and Director Peter Jackson

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Reading her breakout novel, Sebold's even, unemotional voice is a good match for both the drab setting of a Midwest town enduring the 1970s and for her matter-of-fact writing, which manages to seem grounded even as the protagonist narrates from heaven after her brutal murder. Sebold doesn't bother with voicing characters differently; the murdered girl, Susie Salmon, is the listener's window into the world she was forced to leave behind, and Sebold uses a flat, deliberate voice that manages to sound both weary and wistful. Snatches of melancholy chamber music close each track and provide more explicit emotion. What Sebold's voice lacks in stylistic flourish she makes up for with perfect pacing. In an introductory segment, Sebold recounts the novel's genesis and mentions that part of her working process involves reading everything back to herself, which explains her expert rhythm. On the final disc, Sebold reads the first chapter of her 2007 novel, The Almost Moon. While Sebold's fans will be eager for the chance to hear her read, the uninitiated may wish for a bit more passion in her presentation. A Back Bay Books paperback (Reviews, June 17, 2002).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; 1ST edition (April 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316168815
• ISBN-13: 978-0316168816
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3,424 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alice Sebold is the bestselling author of "The Lovely Bones," a novel, and "Lucky," a memoir. Both are #1 New York Times bestsellers. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Sebold grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and attended Syracuse University, as well as the University of Houston and the University of California, Irvine. She now lives in California with her husband, the novelist Glen David Gold.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

298 of 323 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing debut - and an excellent read July 29, 2002

By Debbie Lee Wesselmann TOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Alice Sebold has written a remarkable debut novel. The narrator, 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. The reader won't be able to escape the sadness in these pages - I came close to crying several times - but the overall tone is hardly grim. Because Susie is secure and happy in her heaven, she keeps the story full of light and optimism.

This novel is not flawless, nor should it expected to be. The narrative loses some of its momentum near the end. In addition, Sebold makes the mistake of adding a scene (which I won't describe here) seemingly designed to lessen the reader's regret about Susie's missed coming-of-age, but instead the scene falls flat. Susie's loss is as much a part of this book as her family's is, and to pretend it can be reversed, even if only temporarily, defeats the story. Still, given the first two-thirds of the book, this misstep and others can be forgiven.

The Lovely Bones is one of those books you can pick up and not want to put down again until you finish. At roughly 325 pages, this novel demands to be read on a plane, or on the beach, or when you have good chunks of time available to sit with it. Don't frustrate yourself by allowing a half hour here and there.

This is one book that deserves its spot on the bestseller list.

294 of 328 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Almost too close for comfort July 28, 2002

By Lover of children's books

Format:Hardcover

Less than 2 years ago, our 13-year-old son Daniel died - very unexpectedly, of a massive asthma attack while on a school retreat. I purchased "The Lovely Bones", knowing the book's premise, for our 17-year old daughter to read. Not sure if the content of the book would be too close to our actual experience for Julia to handle, I decided to read it first (this is the first time I have done any pre-reading, as Julia is perfectly able to decide on her own whether or not to read a book, but still. . . ). I was very surprised to find myself riveted to the book, and unable to stop reading it until finished. While I, like many earlier reviewers, found the end a little too contrived, I certainly feel that the book's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses.
About 6 months after Daniel's death, I had a dream that portrayed a visit by my husband, daughter, and myself to Daniel in what was clearly "his heaven" - also containing a school in a residential neighborhood, a "foster family" which apparently served as his "home away from home", and - most positively - a large number of new friends. This was the best aspect of his Heaven, as far as I was concerned, as Daniel had been troubled for his entire life by an inability to make many friends, and here he was almost too busy to visit with his family because of wanting to get on with his activities with his buddies!
I have often offered the circumstances of Daniel's death - fast and probably painless (as a friend remarked, "Daniel doesn't know he's dead yet"), and that he was able to donate many of his organs - as probable explanations to those who find me so "upbeat" since he died. I contrast this situation with other, well-publicized child kidnappings, murders, and (worst, in my opinion) those events which are never resolved....
Nonetheless - some aspects of the narrative hit home, and I found myself tearing up more over this fictional account than our own all-too-real loss! I was forced to wonder what would Daniel think if he is able to follow our lives, as Susie followed those of her family and friends. Does he still pine for the girl he had a crush on? Is he sorry that he can't see the sequal to his beloved MIB movie? Is he able to eat his fill of cheese pizzas, now that he doesn't have to take at least one bite of his mother's sometimes too-exotic vegetarian experiments? Does he find it annoying that, after years of refusing to allow pets, we now have 3 crazy cats, as a result of Julia "needing" them? Is he bemused by the grief-stricken responses to his death by those same classmates he had sought as friends for so many years?
I am awaiting Julia's response to the book. In particular, I want to know how "genuine" the characterizations of Susie and Lindsay appear to her. I will suggest that she submit a review herself, so we will all know the answer. Read more ›

119 of 137 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars This is a best-seller? August 3, 2003

By Christopher Dudley

Format:Hardcover

I've heard this book mentioned a lot in press and conversation and everything I'd heard about it was good. The concept of a murdered girl watching her family on earth deal with her death intrigued me. When I finally got to reading it, it was an incredible disappointment. The writer handles death by skipping lightly from subject to subject, going off on tangents in the form of flashbacks as events in the grieving family's life reminds the dead narration character of something from her childhood.

Susie Salmon, the narrator, is murdered by a neighborhood serial killer, and that's where her story begins. The book starts off well enough, with realistic reactions of friends and family. The characters are depicted in varying degrees of detail. Those characters outside the immediate family are largely variations on stock characters, such as the grizzled veteran cop, the playgirl grandma, even the reclusive serial killer. In life, misfit Ruth barely knew the girl, but becomes Susie's best friend after death, which I found a bit odd. The fact that Susie's mother is developed as a character only by minor hints and glances is probably the most artful thing the writer attempted to do in this short novel, and a good effort, but in the end, we still don't know her as well as we ought to. Susie's father is the most graphic representation of grief as he holds on to Susie's memory long after everyone else has moved on. The characters in what Susie calls "my Heaven" are barely described at all. But details that seem meaningful are handed out, such as Holly, her roommate, taking her name from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - we're never told why or what her real name was....

The flow of time is difficult to follow in this novel, because while Susie is observing life on earth after her death, she frequently gets sidetracked in flashbacks of her early childhood. While this could be a constructive method of telling her life story in a series of flashbacks, they are instead delivered in no particular order and with no unifying theme. The only thing they all have in common is the saccharine-sweet heart-yank that comes from a kid story. Perhaps this is how the author wished to show sentimentality, but all it left me with was a brief description of a family photo album. These scenes went by too fast and randomly for the reader to get attached to any of them. In non-flashback flow, the author lingers too long in the immediate aftermath of Susie's murder. It seems we're shown every day until a certain point, and then we're rushed about 10 years down the road.

The Deus Ex Machina ending for the killer was a bit of a laugh. The plotline was given all along of the tightrope he walked between discovery and concealment. After all the near misses and the evidence being grabbed by Lindsey, all of it came to nothing as the other characters kept just missing him, and none of it was ever resolved. I realize that a major theme of the book was that evil isn't always punished, but in such a case, why let the reader know who did it? Why construe events so that everyone but the cops know who did it? The recurrence of the killer as a character allowed some building of suspense, but with no payoff, the suspense is wasted.

Oh, and the bit about the elbow. Her chopped her up and put her in a bag. But a neighborhood dog found Susie's elbow. I'm wondering how he chopped her so that there was an ELBOW just ready to drop off the bag. Was it a flap of skin from her elbow? The lower part of the humerus with the upper parts of the ulna and radius attached? Why would he make that a separate part? And say it out loud. Elbow. There's something intrinsically silly about it. How are we supposed to feel any of the gravity of the situation when the dog finds an ELBOW? Another thing that rang false was that after so many times Susie tried to contact the world of the living, she is through some unexplained means able to take over the body of her friend-after-death Ruth. And rather than call the police, and tell them where her body is, tell them the story of the murder, she just uses this opportunity to have sex, and nothing more.

Though this isn't truly awful, I can't understand what makes it a bestseller. The writing is mediocre, the story is sappy and too sugar-sweet to be belived at times. In the end, I felt that the book could have been good, and parts of it were fairly decent. But what could have been an interesting study in grief and resolution ended up being a cursory flight down memory lane. Read more ›