The Lovely Bones: Summary and book reviews of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, plus links to an excerpt from The Lovely Bones and a biography of Alice Sebold.

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 on Earth 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 most wants: 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 suspenseful and even funny novel about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing.

Media Reviews

Sebold has given us a fantasy-fable of great authority, charm, and daring. She's a one-of-a-kind writer.

 Lynn Freed, author of House of Women
Alice Sebold achieves something extraordinary in this novel she makes manifest, in a beautifully written and complex story full of love and hope, the utter banality of evil.

 Karen Joy Fowler, author of Sister Noon
Alice Sebold's first novel is amazing. Careful and courageous, original and profound, The Lovely Bones spins the most painful subject imaginable into pure gold. The beginning is chilling, the ending gorgeous; there is no way to put it down in between. Reading it is a gift!

 Elaine Petrocelli, bookseller, Book Passage
I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed The Lovely Bones. Alice Sebold brings Susie to life-even as she looks down from heaven. And she never loses the voice and point of view-not an easy feat in such an original story. I can't wait to start telling people that they must read The Lovely Bones. Thanks for letting me have an early look at this treasure.

 Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Lovely Bones is one of the strangest experiences 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.

 Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture
What a wonderful writer Alice Sebold is. Out of darkness she makes light, out of despair and violence, beauty, out of deep loss a peculiar, hard-won gain. All her characters, for good or ill, travel to surprising places, and so do we, her extremely fortunate readers.

 Amy Bloom, author of A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
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.

 Aimee Bender, author of An Invisible Sign of My Own
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 heartbreaking page-turner. I envy the reader who is about to jump into the world of Susie Salmon and her incredible family.

 Heidi Julavits, author of The Mineral Palace
Sebold ingeniously, and with great humor and bluntness, distorts the typical coming-of-age story-her Susie Salmon, a winsome teenager, is already dead. Yet The Lovely Bones achieves a delightfulness, a buoyancy, a darkly addictive charm, precisely because Sebold never shirks her raw emotional duties toward this aggrieved family, this murdered girl.

 Alice Elliott Dark, author of Think of England and In the Gloaming
In The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold depicts both heaven and earth with such skill that the many surprises in this book feel believable and familiar. I read every word with pleasure and admiration. The Singhs and the Salmons will be in my thoughts for a long time.

Recent Reader Reviews

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Rated of 5