Claire's review
The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
I have to agree with your comments. However, I still think it was a pretty good read just because it made me keep turning the pages. To me, the most annoying part was that in the final chapters, when everyone converges at the landfill, you start to think that maybe, somehow, the killer is actually going to be caught. Or at least that her body will be found, by some miracle. But that doesn't happen. Which left me thinking, what was the whole point of that scene at the landfill anyway?
By the way, I heard that this book was being made into a movie. Can you imagine? I do not have any idea how they are going to make a movie out of this and actually make it enjoyable to watch.
Claire, how funny that I was coming here to write a similar review. I too skim books more than I read them, and I finished this book and gave it three stars. Then I read the other reviews and couldn't believe that I missed such doozies as "pupils like... ferocious olives." What?? I really need to pay attention more when I'm reading!
I think a lot of your concerns are displaced and that your first reading of the book is more on target. I can see how if you have to skim books and you were looking for a murder mystery - which isn't exactly this book - you wouldn't like it and would get a different impression of the book. But, for one, when Susie and Ray are together it is not really 'teen sex.' Ray is 22 and Susie isn't just 14, she's 14 + 8 very dense years of semi-omniscient experience (through observation from heaven - and we can tell she doesn't just see people, but experiences what they feel and think as well, as Susie is constantly giving very specific descriptions of such things). We know from when Susie arrives in heaven that she is watching Earth precisely to figure out how to "grow up," (to see how other people do it, as Susie puts it), an important part of which for her is precisely the part she was 'robbed' of before she could experience: intimacy, which she sees her sister and her best friend experiencing, and which she yearns to experience as well. Thus she didn't return for sex per se so much as this kind of intimacy, to have someone touch her gently and with love and to touch that person in return, to choose to have this happen, to share and feel the good kind of vulnerable and so forth. And as for Ruth, Ruth wanted to give Susie what she wants, and she also wanted to experience the 'otherworldly realm' after becoming so acquainted with violence and being able to sense that sort of 'something else' to the world (which she can't really share with other people on Earth because they don't believe her or don't really get it). She invited Ray to the landfill, she purposefully switched with Susie (Susie struggles to keep Ruth in Ruth's body but cannot overcome Ruth's strength and realizes Ruth must have been planning such a moment for a long time). I think from the way Sebold lays out the scene, it's safe to say Ruth at least expected Susie -might- be intimate with Ray (that is, have sex or in some way be sexual with him), or expected she would. Ruth is, after all, a very smart and intuitive character. Also, her sexuality is somewhat more complicated than just being a lesbian, and if there were anyone she would be okay with Susie using her body to be intimate with, it would be Ray, with whom she also shared a physical, emotional and intellectual intimacy. Sebold seems to suggest that this experience or almost-experience (since Ruth didn't exactly experience it herself but she is still obviously very implicated and involved) will transform Ruth's and Ray's relationship, bringing them closer in a way they couldn't before (Ruth seems to be iffy about touching people, in a sense, and Ray can now more easily take the next step to believing in things that can't be outright proven or put into text books). So I don't think it's really fair to say this is the story of someone who has to have teen sex in the form of rape in order to get to heaven, and there's certainly much more to get from this story that a closer reading may give you.
Claire's review
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Claire's review
rating:
recommended for: nobody
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 of waiting to see if the guy would get caught, etc. So when all was said and done and I finished the book, I thought - yeah, okay. Not bad, but not great. Then I went online here and read the other reviews, particularly one by TheDane (http://www.goodreads.com/user/... and I went - HEY!! That's right! I mean, the writing alone is something I should have picked up one had I really been paying attention. Pupils pulsing l...more
I have to agree with your comments. However, I still think it was a pretty good read just because it made me keep turning the pages. To me, the most annoying part was that in the final chapters, when everyone converges at the landfill, you start to think that maybe, somehow, the killer is actually going to be caught. Or at least that her body will be found, by some miracle. But that doesn't happen. Which left me thinking, what was the whole point of that scene at the landfill anyway?
By the way, I heard that this book was being made into a movie. Can you imagine? I do not have any idea how they are going to make a movie out of this and actually make it enjoyable to watch.
Claire, how funny that I was coming here to write a similar review. I too skim books more than I read them, and I finished this book and gave it three stars. Then I read the other reviews and couldn't believe that I missed such doozies as "pupils like... ferocious olives." What?? I really need to pay attention more when I'm reading!
I think a lot of your concerns are displaced and that your first reading of the book is more on target. I can see how if you have to skim books and you were looking for a murder mystery - which isn't exactly this book - you wouldn't like it and would get a different impression of the book. But, for one, when Susie and Ray are together it is not really 'teen sex.' Ray is 22 and Susie isn't just 14, she's 14 + 8 very dense years of semi-omniscient experience (through observation from heaven - and we can tell she doesn't just see people, but experiences what they feel and think as well, as Susie is constantly giving very specific descriptions of such things). We know from when Susie arrives in heaven that she is watching Earth precisely to figure out how to "grow up," (to see how other people do it, as Susie puts it), an important part of which for her is precisely the part she was 'robbed' of before she could experience: intimacy, which she sees her sister and her best friend experiencing, and which she yearns to experience as well. Thus she didn't return for sex per se so much as this kind of intimacy, to have someone touch her gently and with love and to touch that person in return, to choose to have this happen, to share and feel the good kind of vulnerable and so forth. And as for Ruth, Ruth wanted to give Susie what she wants, and she also wanted to experience the 'otherworldly realm' after becoming so acquainted with violence and being able to sense that sort of 'something else' to the world (which she can't really share with other people on Earth because they don't believe her or don't really get it). She invited Ray to the landfill, she purposefully switched with Susie (Susie struggles to keep Ruth in Ruth's body but cannot overcome Ruth's strength and realizes Ruth must have been planning such a moment for a long time). I think from the way Sebold lays out the scene, it's safe to say Ruth at least expected Susie -might- be intimate with Ray (that is, have sex or in some way be sexual with him), or expected she would. Ruth is, after all, a very smart and intuitive character. Also, her sexuality is somewhat more complicated than just being a lesbian, and if there were anyone she would be okay with Susie using her body to be intimate with, it would be Ray, with whom she also shared a physical, emotional and intellectual intimacy. Sebold seems to suggest that this experience or almost-experience (since Ruth didn't exactly experience it herself but she is still obviously very implicated and involved) will transform Ruth's and Ray's relationship, bringing them closer in a way they couldn't before (Ruth seems to be iffy about touching people, in a sense, and Ray can now more easily take the next step to believing in things that can't be outright proven or put into text books). So I don't think it's really fair to say this is the story of someone who has to have teen sex in the form of rape in order to get to heaven, and there's certainly much more to get from this story that a closer reading may give you.