• THE LOVELY BONES

• by Alice Sebold
• [rated by PBS readers as #69!!]
• 328 pages

Possibly because the Alex Cross mystery I just finished reading felt like such a guilty pleasure, when I pulled this title, I thought I was ready for it. You know, time to get deep for this blonde!

I had heard the premise – that the main character was dead and she was the one telling the story. But nothing  could really make anyone be ready for something like this.

The tone she sets from the first page is an amazing one. There is a pure river of heart running through the family stories, yet there is never too much time elapsed between grizzly details, shocking you freshly each time. So you are drawn into the story and its details, repulsed and then, to your true amazement, you are ultimately charmed by the voice of this girl and her sweetness. Man.

From the first page, I felt a part of this tale. When I’m not reading it, I’m drawn to it, which is the mark of a great story. Then, just before picking it up, the overall story gives me the creeps. But not creepy enough to delay reading it, after which you are again reconnected.

The cover has a few quotes that say that Lovely Bones reminds them of To Kill A Mockingbird. I can see that. The sparse, elegant writing, for one. The lovely and not overwritten characters.

At 70 pages in, I have a few quibbles. The depiction of heaven is almost without detail. I hope the author will round that out a bit. And the narrator, unlike Scout in Mockingbird, seems incredibly erudite for a girl just becoming a teenager. But these are small quibbles. And there is too far to go to think that things won’t take twists and turns before we’re through.

Oh, one other sweet story about getting the book in the first place. Whenever I pick the next title, I call my neighborhood bookstore called Readers and ask if they have it. They so far haven’t (except for the first one, Outlander). They can order it. I don’t want to wait that long. I can take forever to read these but the second I’m done and pick another title, I want that book in my hands!

I then call my local library to see if they have it. They don’t. They can order it. I don’t want to wait that long. So my next place is a very large Barnes & Noble in Santa Rosa. So far, they’ve had them all. So I pack up my dog, Poppy, and take a ride.

This time, my local store had a used copy of Lovely Bones. I said I wanted it and to please hold it. I went to buy it.

It has this lovely bit written in the front of it, from Luke to Maria. It has love in it and high respect – perhaps a teacher of his? Or a reader he wanted to give something special to?

At any rate, I am thoroughly charmed by it and the chance to read Luke & Maria’s copy of it.

4/16/19

I really want out of this one. You might even call it my first crisis book.

Not that big a crisis, I’ll grant you. I’ll get there.

When this book started, the notion of this little girl dying and narrating the book from heaven, watching everyone suffer and try to solve her murder and their own lives in the process, seemed revolutionary in terms of point of view. And it was an amazing beginning. When I write, beginnings are always the hardest so that was one world class opening.

But then, heaven didn’t become anything. How do you put some one in heaven and not have it become anything? The supposition is put in there that in heaven, you will move on as soon as you can let go of the world. That seems a bit tidy. It makes for a whole lot of her just viewing the world.

Wouldn’t she make friends up there? In this book, they say that you get whatever you can imagine in this heaven, but if you can’t connect with people, what’s the point in, say, imagining and concocting your own ferris wheel for instance? Just to ride around by yourself?

Then, though the author writes in ways that keep suspense in there, for the most part, I’m 50 pages from the end and feel in no hurry to complete it. That close to the end, that isn’t a good sign.

The feeling of quality and intrigue I felt at the beginning were genuine. But have they paid off? Not really. Not yet.

I can see where people who have certain feelings about death would like to think that their departed loved ones just sit on the other side and watch our every move. But that feels really stalemate-like to me.

This is obviously a book that others love. I buy that. It is really possible that my problems with it are mine. The writing is very good.

And who knows? Maybe the end will justify the means.

Stay tuned.

4/17/19

Well, I finished it. Need to collect my thoughts…

The ending definitely made up for the lull I went through in the middle. If anything, there was almost a rush to solve and end everything throughout the book.

The last 50 pages were written extremely well. Might even be the most complex, most detailed and most visual portion of the whole opus.

I’m somewhat interested in how much of this stays with me. If there had been more about heaven, the whole book would have been more interesting to me. But by the end, I finally got what made this a lasting read for so many.

I’m going to finish a few other books and see what of this, if anything, lingers, but you might know by now that I can’t wait to know what the next book will be!

Oh my God. Jurassic Park.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, especially when the dinosaurs could unlock freezers and stuff by the end. But I read a bunch of reviews on amazon and those people emboldened me. They each said that the book is better than the movie and that Crichton’s writing has them reading more and more of his books. I think the fact that he is as versatile as he is and has written on a lot of subjects quells my fears that it will be too dinosaur-y.

We’ll see!