The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

[nannah]

(2.3)

I picked this up because it fit a criteria on my 2018 Reading List, and because I watched it back when the movie adaptation first came out back in 2009. The only things I remember from the movie was that Saoirse Ronan starred in it, and that there was a murder, so I figured this would still be a pretty fresh read.

Content warnings:
rape
pedophilia
murder (vividly described)
some dubious consent

The Lovely Bones isn't a crime story (as I mistakenly remembered from the movie, oops). Instead, it's a story about what happens to the family left behind after a tragic loss.

When Susie Salmon is murdered, her family is sent into a tailspin. Susie watches them from Heaven, silently (and sometimes, not so silently) rooting for each of them as they slowly find their footings again.

Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me. The pace was agonizingly slow, and there were so many plot points that ate up page time that weren't resolved in the end. The emphasis on the family didn't interest me (other books about grief with the emphasis on the family moving forward have done this better - at least to me - but here it just fell flat). There were only few spots where the book made me emotional, but otherwise everything was written in a way that evoked as much emotion from me as a dull nonfiction. I'm being mean, but maybe Alice Sebold's writing just didn't work for me.

Up in Heaven, Susie had a "roommate" of sorts, a girl named Holly, and a counselor (of sorts), too. I think there was two or three mentions of Holly before we were never to hear from her again. The book just dropped her. Was there a point to her being in the book? Was it just implied that Susie would need someone around when first going to Heaven? I don't know, but it could've been handled better.

There were also issues that ... just made me uncomfortable in the latter 1/4. Especially since Susie was killed by a pedophile; I'd assume there wouldn't be mention of "my first kiss was from an adult when I was your age (about fourteen or younger), and it was the best kiss of my life" -- I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point. This older woman also makes eyes at a teenager, and jokes about it - and jokes about her son criticizing her for it. The book and the book's tone makes no criticism of it, either.

Just these two mentions, but they made me incredibly uncomfortable. It's not needed, and it makes the tone and like, complete purpose of the book really unclear.

I just wasn't interested in the plot she spun for the family of Susie Salmon. And I think there were several issues and side plots that could've been handled better; mostly, I think the book could have done with about one hundred less pages.