The Lovely Bones (Fiction)

My mom (Katrina) emailed me the name of her favorite book, "The Lovely Bones" (Alice Sebold). She's not a big reader but I passed this one on to her a few years ago because I knew that she would love it. It is almost impossible not to get drawn into this heartbreaking story of a murdered 14 year old girl (Susie). There is no build up to her killing, it happens almost immediately and the rest of the book has Susie watching from beyond the grave as her family grieves for her in different and destructive ways. Her killer has not been caught and when she is watching him it is all at once fascinating, frustrating and chilling.


Mom says: You know am NOT a book worm but, I can at least tell you my "FAV BOOK" of all times.. which is.. LOVELY BONES and which by the way... you gave the book to me.

Alice Sebold wrote a second book (Lucky) but I haven't been able to finish it. Don't get me wrong, it is very well written but REALLY difficult to finish. She tells the (true) story of her incredibly brutal rape and recovery. Has anyone else read it?

Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings director) is making The Lovely Bones into a movie (releasing 2009). I've attached the IMDB link so you can see the great cast (Stanley Tucci as the bad guy... I heart Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) and Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) play the parents of Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan of Atonement). But even with great actors, it's not too hard to screw up a great book when you throw it on the big screen. Fingers crossed, they DID do justice to White Oleander...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380510/

From Publishers Weekly

Sebold's first novel after her memoir, Lucky is a small but far from minor miracle. Sebold has taken a grim, media-exploited subject and fashioned from it a story that is both tragic and full of light and grace. The novel begins swiftly. In the second sentence, Sebold's narrator, Susie Salmon, announces, "I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." Susie is taking a shortcut through a cornfield when a neighbor lures her to his hideaway. The description of the crime is chilling, but never vulgar, and Sebold maintains this delicate balance between homely and horrid as she depicts the progress of grief for Susie's family and friends. She captures the odd alliances forged and the relationships ruined: the shattered father who buries his sadness trying to gather evidence, the mother who escapes "her ruined heart, in merciful adultery." At the same time, Sebold brings to life an entire suburban community, from the mortician's son to the handsome biker dropout who quietly helps investigate Susie's murder. Much as this novel is about "the lovely bones" growing around Susie's absence, it is also full of suspense and written in lithe, resilient prose that by itself delights. Sebold's most dazzling stroke, among many bold ones, is to narrate the story from Susie's heaven (a place where wishing is having), providing the warmth of a first-person narration and the freedom of an omniscient one. It might be this that gives Sebold's novel its special flavor, for in Susie's every observation and memory of the smell of skunk or the touch of spider webs is the reminder that life is sweet and funny and surprising.
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