| SEE
ALSO |
 |
|
More
books in Leeds
More from culture in Leeds
What's
your favourite book?
BBC
Books
BBC:
The Big Read
|
|
| FACTS |
|
|
The
reviewer:
Caroline Gilbert is
22 years old and lives in Headingley, Leeds.
"I
enjoy a huge variety of literature, both fiction and non-fiction,
prose and poetry. My degree in English Literature at Leeds
Uni gave me access to an array of books that I would not otherwise
have read, many of which I delighted in writing about. My
favourite authors are Michael Ondaatje, Jane Austen and Roald
Dahl, amongst many others."
The
author:
Alice Sebold is also the author of the memoir, Lucky. She
lives in California with her husband.
|
|
| PRINT
THIS PAGE |
|
| View
a printable
version of this page. |
|
 |
|
|
| The
Lovely Bones |
|
The
Lovely Bones is a novel about life and death, forgiveness
and vengeance, memory and forgetting. It is a novel which
finds light in the darkest of places, and shows how even when
that light seems to be utterly extinguished, it is still there,
waiting to be rekindled.
The
Lovely Bones is on the shortlist for Richard & Judy's
Best Read of the Year for the British Book Awards.
|
With
its gritty subject matter - the rape and murder of the fourteen-year-old
Susie Salmon, The Lovely Bones will ensnare and entangle you in
its plot from the very first page. I quickly became inextricably
involved in the nightmarish and immense grief that leaves Susie's
family and neighbourhood reeling after her strange death.
Alice
Sebold's characters are so beautifully and intelligently developed,
that you are drawn into their plight and cannot fail to be moved
by their desperation. I found myself turning the pages compulsively,
as eager as Susie's father to see her face reflected in shards of
glass, or hear a sound to trigger a memory. Sebold has a knack of
knitting these intricate details elegantly into the plot, so that
her novel transplants us seamlessly into the various worlds of her
characters.
In
theory, The Lovely Bones should be a deeply despairing novel. Yet
miraculously, the voice of the dead Susie, the omniscient narrator,
illuminates the tale. From her vantage point in her own mysterious
heaven, Susie's observations illustrate a world where the darkest
tragedy can exist alongside good and moreover, hope. This hope,
along with Sebold's exemplary storytelling, is what will keep you
turning the pages, making The Lovely Bones an exceptional and transfixing
read.
Caroline
Gilbert
|
