Book 21: The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
I'm way behind the curve on reading this former bestseller, which has sat on my bookshelf since I picked it up for super cheap at a sale last year. Since I have a rotten habit of buying books even though I have hundreds on my shelves that I haven't even read yet, I made a rule this year that a certain number of books I read *must* be ones I already own. A so it was that I came to The Lovely Bones, which had a premise that had intrigued me and moved up a bit on my "To Be Read" list after Peter Jackson and Co. optioned it as their next project to take on after the completion of King Kong.
The story is told from the viewpoint of a teenage girl who has been murdered and is residing in heaven. She observes her family and friends as they suffer through her loss and watches her murderer as he moves through the years undetected by law enforcement. At the same time, the narrator elaborates on what "her" heaven is like - in the book, it seems that each individual person creates his or her own afterlife. They're only able to achieve certain things - like be reunited with family members already present - by accepting aspects of what happened in death.
It's not as though the device of having a story narrated by a dead person is original; however, the girl's voice is authentic and the characters are engaging. I'm looking forward to seeing whatJackson
I'm way behind the curve on reading this former bestseller, which has sat on my bookshelf since I picked it up for super cheap at a sale last year. Since I have a rotten habit of buying books even though I have hundreds on my shelves that I haven't even read yet, I made a rule this year that a certain number of books I read *must* be ones I already own. A so it was that I came to The Lovely Bones, which had a premise that had intrigued me and moved up a bit on my "To Be Read" list after Peter Jackson and Co. optioned it as their next project to take on after the completion of King Kong.
The story is told from the viewpoint of a teenage girl who has been murdered and is residing in heaven. She observes her family and friends as they suffer through her loss and watches her murderer as he moves through the years undetected by law enforcement. At the same time, the narrator elaborates on what "her" heaven is like - in the book, it seems that each individual person creates his or her own afterlife. They're only able to achieve certain things - like be reunited with family members already present - by accepting aspects of what happened in death.
It's not as though the device of having a story narrated by a dead person is original; however, the girl's voice is authentic and the characters are engaging. I'm looking forward to seeing what
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