The Lovely Bones

author
Alice Sebold

yo!
This book is highly intense, so be ready. Told in first person by a fourteen-year-old girl who is already in heaven, after being raped and murdered by her neighbor. The book is great, really wonderful, highly original; and not as horribly devastating as you'd think, given the subject matter. It is, at times, an emotionally difficult read—but always, always worth it. If you can take the heat, it's fabulous.

what the back of the book says
When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a fourteen-year-old girl, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope.

In the weeks following her death, Susie watches life continuing without her - her school friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her family holding out hope that she'll be found, her killer trying to cover his tracks. As months pass without leads, Susie sees her parents' marriage being contorted by loss, her sister hardening herself in an effort to stay strong, and her little brother trying to grasp the meaning of the word "gone."

And she explores the place called heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counselors to help newcomers adjust and friends to room with. Everything she ever wanted appears as soon as she thinks of it except the thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on Earth.

With compassion, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie sees her loved ones pass through grief and begin to mend. Her father embarks on a risky quest to ensnare her killer. Her sister undertakes a feat of remarkable daring. And the boy Susie cared for moves on, only to find himself at the center of a miraculous event.

The Lovely Bones is luminous and astonishing, a novel that builds out of grief the most hopeful of stories. In the hands of a brilliant new writer, this story of the worst thing a family can face is transformed into a suspensful and even funny novel about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing.

who else loved this book (or at least, says they did)
Jonathan Franzen ("Sebold has given us a fantasy-fable of great authority, charm, and daring. She's a one-of-a-kind writer.")

Michael Chabon ("The Lovely Bones is one of the strangest experinces I have had as a reader in a long time, and one of the most memorable. Painfully funny, bracingly tough, terribly sad, it is a feat of imagination and a tribute to the healing power of grief."

Amy Bloom ("Set in a heaven as real and possible as the earth is mysterious and shifting, The Lovely Bones explores, with clear-eyed affection and wit, the romance of family life, the shy, funny turbulence of adolescence, and the painful tracks love and loss make through our world.")

Anna Quindlen ("Destined to become a classic, in the vein of To Kill a Mockingbird...I loved it.")

Aimee Bender ("The Lovely Bones is the kind of novel that, once you're done, you may go visit while wandering through a bookstore and touch on the binding, just to remember the emotions you felt while reading it. Intensely wise and gorgeously written, The Lovely Bones is a hearbreaking page-turner. I envy the reader who is about to jump into the world of Susie Salmon and her incredible family.")

other things this author has written
Lucky
The Almost Moon