Book review: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
It's been a while since I did a book review, mostly because I pretty much skipped reviewing the last two books I read before this one. I was going to do a long review for the Conan book, but I lost what I'd written and never bothered to start over. The H.P. Lovecraft book I've never actually finished, having only read stories from it at work. It seems like the short pieces in such a book should work nicely for me reading at work during breaks and such, but even though I really enjoyed some stories, I couldn't get into the book as a whole and I found it difficult to focus which might have been due to shingles or the medicine or plain old fatigue and nothing to do with the quality of the book. Maybe I'll finish the stories later .
Anyway, in contrast to the aforementioned books, The Lovely Bones was a quick read. I read the whole thing today. I think it took me under eight hours. My copy is 328 pages. I do not normally go through books over 300 pages in one day unless they're really good, so I guess this one's really good. I was definitely into it, but there's also more to a book being good than just that one element. So how worthy is the novel? I don't know. I guess I usually don't know what to say about a book I just read this very day, pausing only to sleep for a few hours (I started at like 1:00 in the morning) and eat one meal. Is my reaction now more or less valid than my recollection will be in the future? All I know is that I am clearly quite inept at this whole reviewing thing.
Good things about the book. Okay, so it's very easy to read. It's written from the perspective of a fourteen-year-old girl, so that might be part of the reason for this. On that note, the narrator does seem to mature convincingly, which is, at minimum, a cool bonus. I say convincingly because I found it convincing, but I don't know how thorough one has to be in this situation, because the narrator is dead from the beginning and a rite-of-passage story for a dead person, which this is, differs strikingly from the traditional rite-of-passage story in that rather important detail. But all of the characters seem to be realistically crafted. Because of this and the subject matter (dead girl), the story is emotionally powerful throughout. I probably wouldn't say that it's the most emotionally powerful book I've read, but it comes pretty close. Perhaps the most impressive thing is that the author handles a variety of potentially "touchy" subjects quite tastefully and integrates them into the story with what seems to be a precise sense of balance. Any of the elements going a bit to far to an extreme could ruin things by making the story too unbelievable or too preachy or any number of other things. Ask me if I still think so later, when I haven't just read it, but I thought this book was very classy. Rely on emotions it might, but I am not talking about cheap appeals that camouflage a lack of actual substance. The plot holds interest, the characters are easy to like, and the themes are captivating.
Bad things about the book? Well, there's one part toward the end, it reminded me of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, that doesn't really work. As soon as it began I thought that things could either take a turn for the highly intriguing or the superficial, but the truth was completely different. The section is actually quite short and seems to serve only to tie up a loose end. I actually liked it at the time and perhaps having it there is an improvement over what the loose end would be without it, but having read the whole book, it just seemed out of place and out of character. Really, that's the only thing I can think of that wouldn't be down to one's personal preference for how a story should be. The best books I've read, while they may or may not have been so emotionally powerful as this one, really explored ideas and forced me to think. On a few occasions, the concepts from the book occupied my mind for weeks after I'd actually finished reading and the effect still has yet to fully fade. The Lovely Bones is not like that. I contend that it's still a great book and a classic, just not the stellar, mindblowing experience some books can be.
Caveats. This is a story about a teenage girl who was raped, murdered, chopped up into pieces, and thrown into a sinkhole. In death, she is seemingly omniscient and gets to witness her family become devastated and fall apart while friends change and grow up without her and her killer avoids the police at every turn. If the thought of reading such a book makes you sick, you should probably not read this one. You should probably also lighten up a little. On the other hand, if a story like that sounds potentially interesting, but you figure that the story will either drown itself in tragedy and loss or become all sappy and such, you should probably check it out because it surprisingly manages to avoid that, even with a basic plot that, at least on the surface, sounds prone to fall into such a trap. Also, a sizable portion of this novel is set in an afterlife. Ever since I read Man and Superman, any afterlife setting seems somehow shallow to me, even if it's well done, as it was in Stranger in a Strange Land or this book. I think His Dark Materials actually overcame this, which might be part of why I rate it so highly. I considered criticizing the "heaven" in The Lovely Bones but I suspect that is a quirk on my part because I wanted it to be more like Man and Superman, which is ridiculous. It's not as good as The Lovely Bones, not a novel anyway, and only the one dream/hell part of it has any common ground at all. I think the heaven parts work for the purposes of this story.
This book is tentatively ranked at #29 on my Top 50. I have not posted an updated list for a long time and something about the way the list looks, at present, is unsatisfying enough that I will probably continue putting off another rendition. So we'll see. I can't actually think of who I do and do not recommend this one to, other than what I already noted in the caveats. It's an easy read and if you appreciate it at all, which you should, you will probably be done with it sooner than you think, so I'd say it's certainly worth the risk if you're unsure. Like I mentioned, it isn't mindblowing. You won't find ideas that leave you pondering in fascination. The concepts are fairly simple and universal. There are some fun twists on them, as the author has what might be called a dark sense of metaphor. For example, the title of the book comes from the use of "bones" as a metaphor to describe the connections and relationships formed between people to fill the gap left by the narrator's death, being likened to the mere skeleton of an organism, beyond her comprehension, that is growing up around her old life, all while her actual, physical bones lie undiscovered in a sinkhole. It may not invade my thoughts for weeks to come, but it does have a sort of appeal to it. Best work of fiction I've read since A Fire Upon the Deep.
Anyway, in contrast to the aforementioned books, The Lovely Bones was a quick read. I read the whole thing today. I think it took me under eight hours. My copy is 328 pages. I do not normally go through books over 300 pages in one day unless they're really good, so I guess this one's really good. I was definitely into it, but there's also more to a book being good than just that one element. So how worthy is the novel? I don't know. I guess I usually don't know what to say about a book I just read this very day, pausing only to sleep for a few hours (I started at like 1:00 in the morning) and eat one meal. Is my reaction now more or less valid than my recollection will be in the future? All I know is that I am clearly quite inept at this whole reviewing thing.
Good things about the book. Okay, so it's very easy to read. It's written from the perspective of a fourteen-year-old girl, so that might be part of the reason for this. On that note, the narrator does seem to mature convincingly, which is, at minimum, a cool bonus. I say convincingly because I found it convincing, but I don't know how thorough one has to be in this situation, because the narrator is dead from the beginning and a rite-of-passage story for a dead person, which this is, differs strikingly from the traditional rite-of-passage story in that rather important detail. But all of the characters seem to be realistically crafted. Because of this and the subject matter (dead girl), the story is emotionally powerful throughout. I probably wouldn't say that it's the most emotionally powerful book I've read, but it comes pretty close. Perhaps the most impressive thing is that the author handles a variety of potentially "touchy" subjects quite tastefully and integrates them into the story with what seems to be a precise sense of balance. Any of the elements going a bit to far to an extreme could ruin things by making the story too unbelievable or too preachy or any number of other things. Ask me if I still think so later, when I haven't just read it, but I thought this book was very classy. Rely on emotions it might, but I am not talking about cheap appeals that camouflage a lack of actual substance. The plot holds interest, the characters are easy to like, and the themes are captivating.
Bad things about the book? Well, there's one part toward the end, it reminded me of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, that doesn't really work. As soon as it began I thought that things could either take a turn for the highly intriguing or the superficial, but the truth was completely different. The section is actually quite short and seems to serve only to tie up a loose end. I actually liked it at the time and perhaps having it there is an improvement over what the loose end would be without it, but having read the whole book, it just seemed out of place and out of character. Really, that's the only thing I can think of that wouldn't be down to one's personal preference for how a story should be. The best books I've read, while they may or may not have been so emotionally powerful as this one, really explored ideas and forced me to think. On a few occasions, the concepts from the book occupied my mind for weeks after I'd actually finished reading and the effect still has yet to fully fade. The Lovely Bones is not like that. I contend that it's still a great book and a classic, just not the stellar, mindblowing experience some books can be.
Caveats. This is a story about a teenage girl who was raped, murdered, chopped up into pieces, and thrown into a sinkhole. In death, she is seemingly omniscient and gets to witness her family become devastated and fall apart while friends change and grow up without her and her killer avoids the police at every turn. If the thought of reading such a book makes you sick, you should probably not read this one. You should probably also lighten up a little. On the other hand, if a story like that sounds potentially interesting, but you figure that the story will either drown itself in tragedy and loss or become all sappy and such, you should probably check it out because it surprisingly manages to avoid that, even with a basic plot that, at least on the surface, sounds prone to fall into such a trap. Also, a sizable portion of this novel is set in an afterlife. Ever since I read Man and Superman, any afterlife setting seems somehow shallow to me, even if it's well done, as it was in Stranger in a Strange Land or this book. I think His Dark Materials actually overcame this, which might be part of why I rate it so highly. I considered criticizing the "heaven" in The Lovely Bones but I suspect that is a quirk on my part because I wanted it to be more like Man and Superman, which is ridiculous. It's not as good as The Lovely Bones, not a novel anyway, and only the one dream/hell part of it has any common ground at all. I think the heaven parts work for the purposes of this story.
This book is tentatively ranked at #29 on my Top 50. I have not posted an updated list for a long time and something about the way the list looks, at present, is unsatisfying enough that I will probably continue putting off another rendition. So we'll see. I can't actually think of who I do and do not recommend this one to, other than what I already noted in the caveats. It's an easy read and if you appreciate it at all, which you should, you will probably be done with it sooner than you think, so I'd say it's certainly worth the risk if you're unsure. Like I mentioned, it isn't mindblowing. You won't find ideas that leave you pondering in fascination. The concepts are fairly simple and universal. There are some fun twists on them, as the author has what might be called a dark sense of metaphor. For example, the title of the book comes from the use of "bones" as a metaphor to describe the connections and relationships formed between people to fill the gap left by the narrator's death, being likened to the mere skeleton of an organism, beyond her comprehension, that is growing up around her old life, all while her actual, physical bones lie undiscovered in a sinkhole. It may not invade my thoughts for weeks to come, but it does have a sort of appeal to it. Best work of fiction I've read since A Fire Upon the Deep.