Year in (Book) Review: The Lovely Bones

1. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
2. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld

(I told you I was backed up. Two in one day. Can you handle it?)

Book number three: the widely read and highly touted The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. I know, I know -- I'm a bit behind the times on this one. As is often the case, it took the movie coming out for me to get around to reading it. I wish desperately that I had nothing to do but read; if that was the case as soon as a book garnered any attention, and certainly by the time it was optioned, I would have my nose buried in it. But unfortunately (and contrary to popular opinion), I do have other things to do. Today, for example, I had to watch approximately ten hours of ESPNU, in honor of National Signing Day. (Ohio State fared okay. Eh. I'm so sick of Florida, and I loathe Lane Kiffin.) Mainly the reason I hate not reading a book before the film is announced is that then I have the actors in my head, rather than letting my imagination create and define the characters, as written. (If I'd had to read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts in my head, for example, I would not have been happy.) (Although in this particular case Mark Wahlberg was just too bizarre a casting choice for me to envision as this girl's father, and I love me some Mark Wahlberg.)

I won't beat a dead horse with this one - chances are if you've not read The Lovely Bones at this point you're either not going to or illiterate. Or, you're just even more backlogged than me. It's a beautiful story, which is always a strange thing to say about an ugly story. Young Susie is murdered (I don't think I'm giving anything away at this point), rather brutally, and the tale is told from her perspective, both earthbound and otherworldly, as she watches over her mourning, broken family and her tormented, mentally disturbed killer. The most predominant storyline is that of young Susie's relationship with her loving and distraught father, and his unwillingness to let go and leave his daughter's death unsolved. It is touching; it is difficult; it is oftentimes funny and almost ordinary. Sebold's Susie is such a normal, giddy young woman. Even in heaven she experiences things true to a girl coming of age. Sebold never wavers from her narrator's voice; it is steady and so very readable. My only criticism, if you can even call it that, is the seemingly abrupt ending. The entire novel has a feeling of being spread out -- not dragging, just slowly paced -- even as years worth of activities and emotions are laid out for us. So the actual conclusion, which happens really in just a few pages, is a bit jarring in its lack of detail. It's almost an afterthought.

I don't know a tremendous amount about Alice Sebold, but I'm aware that she was a rape victim and has woven that theme into much of her writing. (Her memoir, Lucky, tells her personal story. I would like to read it; that's perhaps the best review I can give an author -- wanting to read more of what he or she has written. Especially when it's about rape, which is not a topic I generally want much to do with.) I compliment her ability to bring realism and authenticity to her story, without delving into such a dark place that her readers are unable or unwilling to follow her.