The Lovely Bones
When I was a freshman in college I remember everyone around me couldn’t stop talking about The Lovely Bones. All I knew was that there was a girl who was murdered in the beginning and that the book was from her point of view up in Heaven. So when the PopSugar reading challenge for this year called for “A best seller from the year you graduated high school” I knew this would be the one I picked up.
Susie Salmon is brutally killed when she is only 14. The hunt for her killer is on, and everyone who knew the young girl deals with the grief left in the wake of this tragedy differently. Who works through it, who wallows, and who runs?
Honestly, I thought this book was going to be very different. I had figured it would focus on catching the killer and bringing piece of mind to the family. Instead, it is a very realistic book about how the pain of loosing a loved one can become a monster that tears at the threads of those still living. I’m going to be totally up front and say that these kinds of books usually aren’t in my wheel house…and that was also true with this novel. I think they are oh-so-real, but yet, a bit boring to read or listen to. I had gotten to the point of acceptance that this book was much like Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See; a little boring to get through, but beautifully written to show true human nature. Just when I was beginning to feel that Sebold had written a realistic visceral account of death and grief, she pulled the rug out from under me with a chapter including a ghostly possession of another human, only to use it to have sex with a long lost love. WAIT? WHAT? You FINALLY had me coming to grips with a pragmatic writing style and then you lay this on me? I had to just throw my hands up and say I didn’t know what kind of book this was supposed to be after all.
Overall I would say this book was all right. This one is nothing to throw away, but definitely for a certain type of reader. I would recommend this one to those who liked Angela’s Ashes or The Kite Runner.
Malia's Pizza Rating
Corn and zucchini pizza.