Review: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Cover Source: GoodReads.com

Title: The Lovely Bones
Series: 
Author: Alice Sebold
Version Reviewed: Finished, Paperback.
Website: www.alicesebold.com
*I borrowed this book from a friend.*

GoodReads Summary:

The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder -- a murder recounted by the teenage victim. Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult material and delivers a compelling and accomplished exploration of a fractured family's need for peace and closure.
The details of the crime are laid out in the first few pages: from her vantage point in heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was confronted by the murderer one December afternoon on her way home from school. Lured into an underground hiding place, she was raped and killed. But what the reader knows, her family does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie, aching for her grieving family, desperate for the killer to be found and punished.
Sebold creates a heaven that's calm and comforting, a place whose residents can have whatever they enjoyed when they were alive -- and then some. But Susie isn't ready to release her hold on life just yet, and she intensely watches her family and friends as they struggle to cope with a reality in which she is no longer a part. To her great credit, Sebold has shaped one of the most loving and sympathetic fathers in contemporary literature.

Review:
I saw this movie after it came out DVD and my husband told me that I was never allowed to pick out our movies again.  I knew immediately that I had to read the book.  It was so odd and different that it had to be read.

I was told that the book was a lot different compared to watching the movie but, from what I remember, it didn't seem to be that much different.

As soon as I read the first page, I was pulled into the book.  The book was pretty good but, in all honesty, I have differing thoughts about it. I really enjoyed it but, at times, I really felt like the story was drawn out and jumped around too much.

It took me quite a while to read The Lovely Bones but, afterwards, I knew that every single thing that I read meant something.

Overall, although I liked the book, I wasn't crazy about it.  I can't say that I would ever read it again in the future.

Rating: 3 Stars.
Characters: Jack, Buckley, Susie.