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Aug 09, 2011

Sarah rated it:

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 ser More...

213 comments like (861 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Seth rated it:

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60 comments like (252 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

KT rated it:

Haaaaaated it. I am one of those OCD literary nerds who takes on a war bunker mentality with books that I've started and dislike: "I will see this through to the end."
For "The Lovely Bones," I made an exception.
Somewhere, sometime, someone told Sebold she could write. That person should be made to apologize to me, in person, and to all other poor souls who were duped into buying this shlock.
The literary press also needs to break out the cattails for a serious More...

23 comments like (113 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Ted rated it:

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8 comments like (83 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Lee rated it:

The greatest first 30 pages ever. The worst rest.

6 comments like (85 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Carolynn rated it:

I worked at Borders for more than a year and I worked the boring ass registers, usually at night whic was always slow. I leaned there with my chin in my hand staring at the shelves actually wishing that I could help customers in their purchases. It's purely insane, but I think that's what happens anytime you place someone in any kind of confinement. The thing is that if I wasn't a register girl, I would have constant actual contact with the books themselves.

All lunacy aside, one boo More...

10 comments like (76 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Claire rated it:

This book has single handedly shown me that I spend too much time skimming and not enough time really reading and thinking about the books I have been reading. I have two kids and so I'm busy and I often find myself reading when I am stealing time or tired. But that is not even an excuse for this book. When i read the book I thought it was pretty good. Not great, but not bad. I liked the concept and the fact that the girl was the narrator. I like a murder mystery, so I liked the suspense o More...

11 comments like (53 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Tee rated it:

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6 comments like (42 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Amanda rated it:

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 pinne More...

26 comments like (47 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Patrick rated it:

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13 comments like (44 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Fiona rated it:

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22 comments like (35 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Mike rated it:

Okay, let me get the snark out of my system: if you're going to read one heartwarming book about child rape this Summer, make it this one!

Sorry. Even without the hype, I fear some of my gut reaction to this novel would be not merely critical but pissy. The book too often skews into the mawkish, its vision of Heaven a rather tediously-familiar conceit, its approach to trauma also inflected (infected?) by pop-culture desires and devices which simplify, make a sweet sad pap out of d More...

24 comments like (28 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Jessica rated it:

"These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at a great cost, but often magnificent – that happened after I was gone."

I hardly ever read books when they are first released. I always seem to be a few years behind, for whatever reason. Sometimes this works to my advantage, as it allows me to avoid a degree of hype that surrounds certain books. I do remember seeing the blue cover of The Lovely Bones on shelv More...

3 comments like (26 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Steven rated it:

This was the book that made me realise the serious flaw in the theory that if lots of people you see on the tube are reading a book, it must be good. I would say with some confidence that this is the worst book I've ever read in my entire life.

The only thing that kept me going to the end was sheer bloody-mindedness; a determination not to be defeated by any book no matter how brain-deflatingly awful it is. That said, the endless cloying sentimentality in this almost made me throw i More...

8 comments like (25 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Ashley rated it:

Alice Sebold
The Lovely Bones
New York: Little Brown & Company, 2002
329 pp. 21.95
0-316-66634-3

Susie Salmon, a young girl murdered at fourteen, sits in her heaven as she watches her family grieve, suffer and fall apart without her. Susie follows the lives of her family and friends as they struggle to cope with the aftermath of her death. In watching her family on Earth, Susie’s journey to understanding the life she was robbed of becomes the central idea in More...

1 comment like (22 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Embee rated it:

Have you ever read the introduction to a book and thought the notion so interesting, you began forming ideas for the story in your head?

This was exactly the case for me with 'The Lovely Bones'... It started out as I imagined but really fell apart as the story faltered on. I found it very disappointing and wish another author would run with the idea but in a completely different direction.

2 comments like (20 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Kim rated it:

Wow. I'm surprised that there was so much animosity towards this book (from the reviews here on Good Reads). Even if I didn't like it, I don't think I'd find so much in it to HATE it. The approach is different, which some might call trite or some call imaginative. I think I just liked Susie. She spoke what was on her mind, the perspective was fresh and the subject wasn't typical. Maybe this was a product of hype? I hadn't heard of it until a few friends recommended it to me last week. It More...

14 comments like (21 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Chelsey rated it:

The fictional story of the Lovely Bones was really sad, but intriguing at the same time.The book was about a girl named Susie,she was 14 years old and had a wonderful loving family who cared deeply about each other.She was loved by many.One day as Susie was walking across the field from school she was stopped by a man who would destroy her life and the lives of everyone that loved her.He not only ruined her life forever,but her family and friends will never be the same.What he did was so disg More...

4 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Sammy rated it:

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7 comments like (24 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Renee rated it:

When I used to live in New York (before I knew anyone) I used to wile away the hours wandering around The Strand, not because I was particularly fond of that specific bookstore or anything, but because it was sort of on the way home (my subway line at least, and when you've got a monthly pass who cares?) and no one would bug me and it was relatively warm in the winter. Another thing that I just remember about New York that is the reason why I picked this book up in the first place is this: on s More...

0 comments like (13 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Isabella rated it:

The story starts off interesting enough. Depressing, yes, but at least you have something to build a plot from. Unfortunately, everything goes downhill from there.

I would have given it two stars for the idea and the effort if it weren't for the body-swapping make-out episode towards the end. WTF?

Don't believe the hype.

3 comments like (14 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Maggie rated it:

Why did this book get so much love? Maybe it's the same reason that child molestation/abduction/murder always shoots to the top of CNN.com's list of most-read stories. America is fascinated with the subject matter. That's the only explanation I can think of.
As has been said by other reviewers here, the book itself was atrociously written, with flat, stereotyped characters and is full of laugh-out-loud awful passages. I only finished it so that no one could pull the old "But it gets b More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Suyana rated it:

"The Lovely Bones," had me crying from start to finish. This book is extremely emotion packed. But this book was interestingly written because it's from the point of view from a girl who was murdered. The book starts like this: "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." Already you want to read it; right? You follow the life that this young girl once had as she tells you about the memories she had, the More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Shannon rated it:

I would never have read this if it weren't for my bookclub. Having avoided it since it came out, I had very low expectations and so was surprised to be engrossed in the story - untill, about half-way through, it seemed to lose the plot and meandered around aimlessly, getting repetitive as it tried to wring emotion out of its characters, and me.

Susie Salmon is dead. She begins her story by describing how she is murdered, and her family's reaction. From her place in heaven, she can wa More...

9 comments like (11 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Maggie rated it:

Title: The Lovely Bones
Author: Alice Sebold
Number of Pages: 384
Publisher: 2006 by Little, Brown
Cost: $13.95/19$19.95 in Canada
ISBN: ISBN 0-316-6166685

The Lovely Bones is a book that is shocking and moving at the same time. It was everything that a book should be. In my opinion, The Lovely Bones was one the most interesting novels every written. You are probably asking yourself, “Well, what is so interesting about it?”

“My nam More...

6 comments like (9 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Tracy rated it:

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3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

kensou09 rated it:

Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie, a girl raped and murdered at the age of 14, narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case, struggling to accept her death while as well as clinging to the lost world of the living.
The book started out strong, but it fizzled completely in the middl More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Jason rated it:

Had this been left as a short story or a novella, it would have gotten a much better rating. I absolutely loved the first 80 pages or so. Affecting, comedic, disturbing, creepy, heartwarming, etc etc. Unfortunately, some the of the characters ended up bugging me too much, and the story went from poignant to afflicting, from comedic to moronic, from heartwarming to dull. The edgy wise-cracking, and apparently omniscient, grandma was a stupid idea for this story. We already have a dead girl More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Snarky's rated it:

them bones them bones them OVERRATED bones!

I am trying to make sure my review doesn't sound like I guzzled two quarts of hateraid, so bear that in mind.

I hated this lame piece of crap. Seriously, I get why the world wanted this kind of book, but I really don't get why it's become this omghugebestseller. I hated this book back when it was called "Beloved".

5 comments like (22 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

S C rated it:

This is easily the worst book I've ever read in my entire life.

SPOILER ALERT:
She comes back from heaven to bang the guy she liked.

If you like this book, then you hate literature. It's that simple. I'm not joking. Do not read this book.

1 comment like (15 people liked it)