The Lovely Bones - Large Print Author:Alice Sebold When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a fourteen-year-old girl, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope. In the weeks following her death, Susie watches life on Earth continuing without her-her school friends trading rumors ... more »about her disappearance, her family holding out hope that she'll be found, her killer trying to cover his tracks.
As months pass without leads, Susie sees her parents' marriage being contorted by loss, her sister hardening herself in an effort to stay strong, and her little brother trying to grasp the meaning of the word gone. And she explores the place called heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counselors to help newcomers adjust and friends to room with. Everything she ever wanted appears as soon as she thinks of it-except the thing she most wants: to be back with the people she loved on Earth.
With compassion, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie sees her loved ones pass through grief and begin to mend. Her father embarks on a risky quest to ensnare her killer. Her sister undertakes a feat of remarkable daring. And the boy Susie cared for moves on, only to find himself at the center of a miraculous event.« less
I had this on my shelf for a long time -- I was almost afraid to read it, thinking it would be too sad. It is, instead, almost anything but -- so well written, so full of hope and humanity and love, and surprisingly unsentimental. Just a beautifully crafted novel. I can't recommend it enough.
This book pulled me in from the start. I saw the previews for the movie and like everything else i checked out the book first. I started reading this book and could not put it down.
This story is told bout Susie Salmon and is told from her point of view about her murder, family and friends and even her murder dealing with and living after her murder.
This book for me was a heavy read , it pulled me in , i could see everything feel everything.. this book made me feel grief with this family , the stress of her parents, siblings and how this family changed and was brought back in the end.
This book has love , loss, child romance, longing for , and a family dynamic that is truly wonderful.
After years of being afraid to read this due to the disturbing nature of the story I finally read it and absolutely LOVED it!!! It was a truly amazing book that teaches we all should love life and enjoy what we have before it's gone because once you're gone there's no coming back! Fabulous Read!!!
Karol K. reviewed The Lovely Bones (Large Print) on
I read this book for our neighborhood book club and truly enjoyed the book. It was different and really made you think what those who have gone before can see and what influence theyu can have on our lives.
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.