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 don’t 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 children’s 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 can’t stop weirdly describing people’s eyes. Don’t 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 someone’s heart: “Her heart, like a recipe, was reduced.” What the hell?

And here’s my favorite eye description in the book: “Her pupils dilated, pulsing in and out like small, ferocious olives.” That’s right. Ferocious olives. I’ve read MadLibs that make more sense than that.

It seems to lack a plot. You know, that thing that books are supposed to have. I’ll never forget my first workshop with Brady Udall, in which he threw my story onto the table and said, “This isn’t a story, Sarah, it’s 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. That’s 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 there’s no plot, the ending is just a bunch of weird stuff happening. I read the last thirty pages on the train this morning, and couldn’t stop a few outbursts: “Oh, no she didn’t!” I’d 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. It’s not that I don’t want to write spoilers here, it’s that I can’t even explain to you what happened at the end of the book. And I bet she can’t either. I’m 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 Sebold’s 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 I’m 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?

“Tell me you love me”, he said.
Gently I did.
The end came anyway.

This book is a dichotomy to me. I find it utterly beautiful and impactful but equally arduous and unsatisfying; I can completely understand why it is so divisive.

I read it not long after it came out and loved it so much that I read it over and over, as I did with everything I loved as a kid. Therefore, my opinion could be skewed by my nostalgia for my 12/13-year old self. I was reluctant to read it again as, after seeing so many negative reviews, I expected that my vastly altered reading tastes would ruin a book that I had read to shreds and that had such an impact on me growing up.

I was so glad to find that I loved it just as much, albeit in an entirely different way and other than some issues with the writing and THAT chapter, it was perfect. Each day since I finished it I have thought about it more and more, something very few books bring out in me.

The beginning is both disturbing and gripping, so much so, that I remembered it vividly despite it being over 10-years since I had last read it, which was a surprise to me as I can’t usually even remember what day it is. I had read the author’s memoir Lucky and I believe this in part has also contributed to the resonance of the first chapter.

The middle and end, although less striking (it was a hard act to follow), were a mix of sadness and hope; though it seemed to have lost direction and pace in places, I really felt the message in the end and my love for the characters was enough to keep me going.

Now, being an adult, I felt so much more the love and devastation of the adults and saw how the kids are actually far stronger and more resilient. Jack was wonderful, but that wasn’t something we were told, it grew with the story. He is possibly the best, most loving Dad I have ever read about. I was taken aback by some seemingly uneventful moments that now were heartbreaking and it felt as though the author really understood grief in these small details and so much of it really rang true to me.

Despite being about a murder, it is not a thriller or mystery as we know almost immediately what has happened and whodunnit. Instead, it is an exposed and authentic account of grief that, due to the unusual point of view, we get the benefit of understanding from both sides and without pretence as Susie can see them without the masks that they put on for others and each other. In this way, it is a character-driven ‘journey’ story and if you are willing to invest yourself in them and have your heart broken then I would definitely recommend it.

در بهترین حالت با اثر متوسطی روبه رو هستیم که به هیچ وجه تکلیفش با خودش مشخص نیست. نه میتواند یک درام روان شناسانه ی قانع کننده باشد و نه یک داستان جنایی سرگرم کننده. نه میتواند صرفا یک محصول تینیجری باشد و نه یک اثر فمنیستی الهام بخش. در هر کدام از حالت ها به شدت متوسط و خسته کننده و پر از اشکال است. داستانش بسیار تلاش می کند تا با احساسات شما بازی کند و حس همدردیتان را بر انگیزد. چیزی که عملا در من اتفاق نیوفتاد

این کتاب جزو همان داستان هایی است که سعی میکند به نسل های جوانتر جوامع غربی مدل فکری افراطی فمنیستی را القا کند. چیزی که نه در قالب تعاریف ساده ی جنبش های فمنیستی میگنجد و نه به چنان سطح اعتباری میرسد که سیاه نمایی هایش را قابل باور کند. در این داستان مردان همگی قاتل و متجاوز و غیرقابل تحمل اند. در عوض زنان همیشه مورد ظلم شوهرانشان قرار میگیرند. توسط شوهرانشان در خانه زندانی می شوند و وظیفه ی طاقت فرسای مادر بودن بر آنها تحمیل میشود. به صورتی که در میانسالی وقتی به آرزوهای جوانی خود فکر میکنند همه را از دست رفته می بینند. بنابراین کاملا حق دارند اگر تصمیم بگیرند که همه اینها را بگذارند و خانواده خود را ترک کنند و به دنبال آرزوهایشان بروند

در یک جایی از داستان، یکی از شخصیت های زن، در خیابان ها و کوچه های نیویورک قدم میزند و روح زنان و دخترانی را میبیند که به قتل رسیده اند یا آزار دیده اند. در هر کوچه و برزن! بدون استثنا

اما درنهایت قسمت عرفانی داستان هم به دل نمینشیند. ایده ی اینکه همه تقریبا به بهشت میروند و اینکه با یک بهشت واحد برای تمام آدم ها روبه رو نیستیم، بیشتر از اینکه زیبا به نظر برسد غیر منطقی و شعارزده است

برای همین خواندن این کتاب را به کسی توصیه نمیکنم. با نخواندش هیچ چیزی را از دست نمیدهید. من هم اگر نمیفهمیدم که پیتر جکسون از روی این کتاب فیلمی ساخته، هیچوقت سراغش نمیرفتم

Does anyone else remember me reading this? Because I sure as hell don’t.

This book has the one of the harshest, cruelest, darkest opening, has written its name to the literature history!

After being witnessed sweet 14 years old girl: Susie Salmon’s rape and massacre by her creepy, doll maker, 36 years old neighbor, you want to throw up, scream, pump your fist into something, scream more, wish to do something stop the visual images imprinted on your mind!

It is one of the effective thing you want to forget forever but you know it will never fade away!

As the girl’s mother keep saying her name to summon her to the house, her killer doesn’t stop. He finished what he started and dismembered her body as viciously as he ruined her innocence.

He dumps her into sinkhole and throws at her charming bracelet in the pond!

As her spirit flees from her personal heaven, she starts watching how her family struggle with their lives. She even watches her killer and sees him struggling, too, touching the knife he cut her throat, suffering from emotional turmoil. She wants him dead.

She also finds a way to connect with a school outcast Ruth Connors. From now on there are so many resemblances you can catch with Swayze’s Ghost. Even the ending has so many resemblances.

The book started impressively, earth shatteringly strong and Susie’s heart wrenching and extra traumatic, sad spirit story who is trapped in teenage body with a mature, experienced voice to tell her sadness about the people she left behind and her vengeance story was outstandingly emotional and well written.

For too long, I was planning to read this book. I can only tell one thing, please stay the hell away from the movie adaptation. ( of course it’s not about my hate for actress Saoirse Ronan!) After I watched it, I skipped this book for too long but now I understand they just ruined everything about the story starting with killing its essence and spirit!

It’s truly deep, compelling, unconventional and disturbing story but at least the ending was relieving, more hopeful and taking the emotional pressure out from your chest.

It’s a great book as my flashback Saturday choice.

Here are some quotes I’d like to share:

“Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

“Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”

“Between a man and a woman there was always one person who was stronger than the other one. That doesn’t mean the weaker one doesn’t love the stronger.”

“My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.”

“If I had but an hour of love,if that be all that is given me,an hour of love upon this earth,I would give my love to thee.”

“There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child.”

i don't know who let me read this book at the age of 14, but i did it.

doesn't that kind of explain a lot about who i am today?

part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago

My feelings about The Lovely Bones are mixed. While I was reading it, I found it compelling and remarkably emotional; however, upon completion, I felt somewhat disappointed. It seemed that the wrap-up was too pat in some areas, and totally missing in others. Additionally, there were certain areas that were touched on, when I would have enjoyed more details. Overall, the storyline was original and intriguing. A good read, provided you don't mind crying sporadically throughout the entire book....until the end.

Oh, what to say? There are a lot of HARD topics in this book. The intro starts with a hard-to-read rape and killing of a child.

This story is told from a Heaven viewpoint and an Earth viewpoint. I must say that the heaven viewpoint was a bit awkward to get used to initially.

Following the kidnapping and missing child case was interesting to read about and incredibly frustrating when you can see the full view of the facts and clues that are constantly missed.

The book's ending was a bit stilted and strange, and not sure if the "out of body/in body" experience really added anything to the book. I get what Alice Sebold was trying to do with it, but I don't really think it worked for me as a reader.

Overall it was a solid 4 stars for me. It is definitely not a happy journey of the years following the end of Susie Salmon's life as the town and her family try to cope.

**Trigger Warnings: Rape of Child, Murder of Child by Serial Killer Child Rapist

⭐️4/5 stars ⭐️

"I was 14 when I was killed on December 6, 1973. The photos of the missing girls in the seventies newspapers were more like me. White girls with dark brown hair. "
***
the novel begings with these sentences. quoted from Susie Salmon who is a loop of a chain of murder. The current resident of Heaven. She looks at the earth from there. Sometimes she comes down to the ground & moves to a body....& sometimes narrates whats happen there. The mentioned novel is funny, allegro, rough, astounding and incredibly sad story.
The story has strange paradox: the expressive & innocent text, plus the cruel and rude subject which I was deeply impressed by it.
One of the most beautiful part of the book is a description about paradise which maybe has a huge different from our mental imagination of it, involves an insinuative expectation for poetry.
Susie`s paradise is made up of all things which she loved and didnt achieve them in the world.
Something that strikes me, happens at the end of the story; Susie immerses in the body of a girl who always thinks about her and experience a bond with her lover.
It´s interesting to me: Alice Zibold, author of lovely bones has been beaten and raped at the 18 years old; Suise semen, the narrator of lovely bones is raped and murdered at the age of 14 too.
I´ve lost two of very important people in my life and I always feel they look at me & are with me wherever i´m going. This impression got more strong when I read Lovely Bones.
I would also like to see the movie The Lovely Bones .

Storia di lutto, storia di chi rimane. Ma anche una storia dall’oltretomba. I primi capitoli scoppiettano, sono densi, incalzanti. La voce narrante è quella di Susie, ragazzina 14enne che nelle prime pagine racconta con grande aplomb di come sia stata stuprata e uccisa, il cadavere smembrato e gettato in una discarica. Nonostante l’impatto terrificante di un incipit del genere, si riceve una certa sensazione di leggerezza grazie al tono della voce di Susie, di cui resta impressa la vitalità di ragazza-bambina sopra all’orrore della sua dipartita.

Una delle particolarità del libro è proprio questa voce narrante, perché Susie parla in prima persona ma è anche narratrice onnisciente, in grado di farci conoscere l’intimità dell’animo di tutti gli altri personaggi. La prima parte del romanzo gioca sui contrasti tra la luminosità della famiglia di Susie, la tragicità dell’evento e l’oscurità dell’assassino.

Come dicevo, è una storia di lutto e della sua elaborazione, raccontata attraverso gli occhi della cara estinta. La prima parte del romanzo può far pensare di avere tra le mani un thriller con elementi sovrannaturali, ma non è così. Il libro è un’altra cosa, e ha la pecca di non chiarire bene a priori che promessa stia facendo al lettore. Io stessa mi sarei aspettata qualcosa di diverso, dal suo sviluppo; uno sprofondamento nel male, data l’inclusione del pedofilo serial killer nel coro dei personaggi. La vicenda dell’assassino è un elemento effettivamente presente lungo l’arco narrativo, ma in misura molto contenuta. Il personaggio è funzionale a mantenere un margine di suspense in un racconto sulla perdita che potrebbe altrimenti scoraggiare i lettori; rappresenta anche una falsa pista, il red herring del significato complessivo: ti faccio pensare che il libro parlerà di vendetta, ma in realtà è una storia di accettazione della propria condizione (tanto per la morta, quanto per i sopravvissuti).

L’elemento sovrannaturale è in bilico tra l’onirico e il religioso. Il luogo in cui si trova Susie si chiama “Cielo” (“Heaven”), è una specie di paradiso dove non si contempla Dio, ma la vita sulla terra; ma è anche un luogo di passaggio, quindi forse un purgatorio, o un limbo, dove le anime dei defunti attendono di essere pronte per lo stadio successivo (la contemplazione?). Insomma, mi è sembrato sotto sotto un po’ cristiano, in un’accezione più new age. Eppure, da un lato funziona, con la sua idea delle persone morte che restano al fianco di quelle vive finché ce n’è bisogno; i morti che non muoiono mai nel ricordo e nell’affetto; anche se, dall’altro verso, l'idea è descritta in modo un po’ stucchevole.

Mi ha ricordato un romanzo come The Leftovers (Svaniti nel nulla) di Tom Perrotta, un’opera più recente che, come Amabili resti, parla soprattutto dell’elaborazione del lutto attraverso alcuni elementi fantastici. In entrambi i casi, le idee sono buone, i romanzi sono scritti in modo dignotoso, ma manca un plot forte a puntellare il tutto. Amabili resti è comunque una lettura piacevole, forse un po’ noiosa sulla lunga durata delle sue 300 pagine. Sullo stesso tema, qualcuno troverà più interessante una serie tv come Les Revenants, consigliatissima, dove il linguaggio conturbante dell'horror serve a parlare di come non riusciamo a lasciar andare i morti, e loro non riescano a lasciar andare noi.

It's not the book it's me.... nah, that's to easy.
I suppose this book is well written. It flowed.
It's just the wrong kind of ugly for me.
I wish to take it back out of my thoughts.

I can't review this book by thinking about the plot or about theme and diction, for it is only (and truly) a series of snapshots, candid and sore, that piece together the lives of living people. The delicate sweet soul of a father; a grandmother with the heart of an empath; a sister whose youth and adulthood travel arm in arm; a numb and emptied mother; a young girl then grown woman living pierced on the periphery. This book is about the people in my life and yours whose very essence is pinned down to a spot in time and space--these lovely bones, growing in a soft-shelled skeleton around our lives. It is by turning the pages where these bones grow, that I could reflect on the wheel of life--what a joy (can you call it joy when it's sad?) to witness humanity breathing ceaselessly, moving forward, and loving without remorse. I am at peace to think that this sweet family, though scarred, will smile at another sunrise.

To touch the living is a precious thing.