What readers think of The Lovely Bones, plus links to write your own review.

A good read, somewhat reminiscent of the movie "Ghost", but stands well on its own. Tension was created for me as a reader at key points in the plot, when I expected Susie, our narrator, to do things quite differently than she chose to.

This book was great I loved it it really makes you want to read more.

This book fascinated me. I loved the concept of everyone having their own heaven (Although, wasn't that the premise of the Robin Williams film What Dreams May Come?) and I found myself quite attached to Susie. However, I was also very disturbed by her description of her murder and found it haunting me for days. The last few chapters did bother me, both because the incident with Ray and Ruth was incredibly unbelievable and because everything else got tied up a little too neatly at the end (i.e. Terry McMillan's A Day Late and a Dollar Short). In spite of that, I still would give this book a very high rating because it did engage me quite strongly, sometimes a bit uncomfortably.

This was a beautiful story, very well written. I found "The Lovely Bones" to be a very believeable story and not at all depressing. I recommend it to everyone.

While there is no doubt Alice Sebold's THE LOVELY BONES opens with a stunning first paragraph and contains artful writing throughout the subsequent chapters, it is ultimately not a satisfying read. As Susie Salmon, the murdered protagonist, observes her grief-ruined family and bemoans her thwarted adolescence, we begin to believe that Susie, forever 14 years old in her heaven, is learning the difficult lessons of life, albeit from the "other side." We watch her preparing to accept the things she will never experience - when one of the final chapters cheapens the pain of her tragic reality - that she is dead and she will never have these things. After allowing us to empathize with Susie's perspective from her heavenly perch - she is suddenly sent back to earth to quickly experience her first and last sexual experience with a boy she once kissed 10 years earlier. And, if she did mange to borrow her friend's body to be with her lover, what on earth stopped her from telling him that her dismembered body - the one everyone has been searching for over the past 10 years is lying a few hundered yards away? There are only 2 questions I'd have for any "returned" murdered, missing friend - "Who killed you?" and "Where is your body?" Also, while Susie never dwells on hatred for the man who murdered her - his demise is totally unsatisfying, if not downright cartoonish.

The book was an alright read considering how most people that read the book said it had too many errors and lacked many things. I read the book and I watched the movie. Sad to say but the movie was better than the book and I don't normally go that way. because I often find that the books are better. Oh, well.

I enjoyed reading this book, however, feel that this is not completely her own ideas. This books remembers me of a cross between 'ghost','Sixth sense' and " The 5 People You Meet in Heaven". The den in the ground reminds me of the girl who was held hostage in a underground cave and she could actually hear the police calling her name,escaping a few years ago. As I read this book, I developed a feeling from it being something really special to all of a sudden a feeling of having been 'down this road before'. It's like the author took bits and pieces of other stories and re-created these several parts of different stories into 'The Lovely Bones'. I couldn't help but think that there was nothing original about this story. This is just my personal opinion/ review of this book.

The movie is scheduled to come out in 2009. Although there were many aspects of the book that I liked--her description of the afterlife, and of the disintegration of a family beset by tragedy--there were many times I found myself murmuring, "Stop, stop, enough. Where's the editor?" I don't want to reveal to reveal too much in case you haven't read it, but the much of the last third of the book could be eliminated to good advantage. I have great hopes that Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings movies, can tighten up the story line.

I recommend "Lucky", also by Alice Sebold. It is her memoir of the rape, and consequent trial she experienced as a young woman. In "The Lovely Bones" I felt the author was just telling us what we want to hear, that Grampa will be waiting for us on the other shore, that justice will out, that our wounds will heal, etc.