This book is a pinprick in the eye of readers everywhere. Speaking of eyes, did you know that Alice Sebold can't go two pages without describing people's eyes? Ocean eyes, ferocious olives for eyes… it's like the only defining feature anyone has in this book is their eyes. (However, I do recall once being told about "moonlight skin," and I'm convinced that that was the only character in the book with skin. The rest were just floating eyes.)Besides the fact that eyes were described way too much, there were plenty of other problems with this book. I did not read about a single interesting character in the whole book. I literally cared about no one in the novel the entire time I was reading it. With my lack of investment in the characters in mind, I also found the affair between Len and Abigail to be just so out of the blue; it was pointless. It had no real build to it besides her being like "trust the police." And that bit in the mall? What? You literally left your kid in the playpen to go bump nasties with the guy investigating your daughters murder case. (And the part about Susie waking up to her parents having sex? I thought you were a heavy sleeper + I would not imagine being on a boat with my parents love-making noises in the background. I would be trying my hardest to go back to sleep.)The timing of the book was off, too. I felt like things went by way too quickly without any real explanation of what happened. I got lost in the narrative because I had to double check how long it has been since Susie's death. I also don't like how heaven is portrayed in the book. I personally believe in the heaven spoken about in the Bible, and it will be nothing like the fantasy land that Sebold dreamt up. (Of course I knew going into it what it would be like, but I still don't like it.)Harvey's "resolution," if you can even call it that, sucked. It just did. He completely fell out of the story after he left the neighborhood, and when he did huger mentioned, it was in broken passages that didn't make much sense in the context of the chapter. None of his little scenes had a point. None of them led up to anything important. I can only wonder if Sebold weighed the options between having the cop recognizing him and giving some closure or him falling off the cliff in a very anti-climactic fashion and consciously decided that the latter was the better choice. Lastly, Susie possessing Ruth's body was just wrong. First off, I don't care if you were murdered and have been in love with this guy for forever, taking over someone's body to have sex with someone else without the original and rightful owner of the body giving you the go-ahead is rape. Susie is only different from George Harvey in that she didn't kill anyone and that Sebold wrote her character in a positive light. They're both rapists. On top of that, what the heck, Ray!? You're just okay with having sex with your friend's body because you about eight-years-dead not-quite-girlfriend is supposedly inside of it? What if it was just Ruth acting weird from passing out? I thought he was in med school. Aren't med students supposed to be intelligent and logical? Ray was neither of those things. To me, the idea of raping your friend because a girl that the body owner barley knew tells you that she's inside of it is insane. I hated this book. There were few to no redeeming moments. I thought the grandma was okay. All of my 1.25 stars go to Grandma Lynn (except that she had some George Harvey-like qualities, too. Aka: Dolling up for Hal who was young enough to be her child. Can we say gross?). Do not watch the movie,read the book. It is a disturbing novel, it makes a sensitive reader lose an hour or two of sleep. I cried and worried, and I could not stop reading. Interestingly, there is a romance here, there is an image of the afterlife ( the kind you would not expect), there is also a great emotional turmoil that one cannot escape while reading about the feelings of the departed girl's family. READ IT!
Do You like book The Lovely Bones (2002)?
Moving. I found the first three quarters really moving, but found the ending a bit too much.
—Summer
Read it years ago: one of my least favorite books of all time.
—weareofstars
I read this at the suggestion of one of my sisters.
—holly
Glad I finally got around to reading this!
—Keyshlaa
