Review - The Lovely Bones

Just finished reading The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. I quite liked it. From the minute I picked it up it was tugging me through the story. I was intrigued by Susie's heaven, intrigued by how the family was dealing with her death. The prose was interesting, the descriptions a bit different to usual -- sometimes too much so, like when a girl's eyes are described as "ferocious olives".

There are very few surprises, with this book. That's obvious from the second sentence: "I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." I'm not sure what you'd say the plot was about: I guess it's about a murdered girl watching her family deal with her death, and slowly beginning to deal with it herself.

The characters are interesting. Abigail reminds me of a woman I read about in some other book, when I was little: she gave up what she wanted to be a mother and a wife. I think I liked Abigail better of the two. She ran away from it, and then she came back and tried to work through it.

I'm not sure what I think of the subplot between Ruth and Ray. It's interesting, and Ruth is an interesting character, but parts of it -- near the end -- kinda creeped me out. There's a moral issue there that isn't explored, that's just glossed over.

I liked it, but it didn't blow me away, I guess.