Loveliest Bones
About a month ago I finished reading The Lovely Bones, by Alice Siebold, and I have been having a lot of trouble getting into another book since that one. Sometimes I have this problem, when I finish a book, it takes me a while to get into a new one. In this case its not so surprising because the Lovely Bones was such an incredible book.
It was a Christmas present last year, which sat beside my bed in my 'books to read asap' pile. It's quite a big stack really, I never have only one book on the go. As soon as I finished the Dark Tower, which I will discuss in a later post, I again had my transition problem, but I eventually settled into Lovely Bones. With an opening line like "My name is Susie Salmon, like the fish, and I was 12 when I was murdered on December 14th 1976..." not exactly the opening, but close, it had me hooked in right quick.
This is now one of my all time favorite books. It is small, not a very long read, but the content is huge and powerful. I am truly impressed at how Ms. Siebold has taken such a tragedy, the horrifying tragedy of a young murdered girl none the less, and brought forth such a moving and intelligent story. If any of you reading this hasn't read the book yet, I apologize for ruining anything for you, but you should go out right now and read it if you are interested.
One of my favorite aspects of the story is the description of Susie's heaven, down from which she gazes and observes the rest of us, and especially her family. If such a tragedy has not occurred to us, we can hardly imagine what it would do to a family, but Ms. Siebold depicts the breakdown and complicated pain Susie's family endures and cracks under. I cried many times while reading this book, and I have to commend a writer who can elicit such an emotional response from her readers. It amazes me how she could write this story and not make it damaging to me, the reader. That is one of the aspects that I really admire.
When I was 17 I started reading a book written by a journalist who had been at the Holmolka, and Bernardo trials. This journalist wrote the story of these killers, and what happened to their victims. As anyone who remembers the case (and who could not these days), there was a lot of video footage of the horrors that these two performed. Well the book was full of this stuff. My aunt had just finished reading it, and as I have always been interested in psychology (including criminal), I decided I wanted to read it next. She warned me that I may be too sensitive for the story, but I scoffed. Part way into the story, I started having nightmares, and horrible tortured thoughts. I closed the book somewhere in the middle of the first kidnapped girls ordeal, but that did not work. I kept having nightmares and horrific images in my mind. Inside me it felt like the girl was still trapped and being so horribly abused, so I re-opened the book and read just until he finally killed her. After that I closed it for good and cried my heart out for those girls. It took me months to stop seeing them in my mind. There was a time when I wished I could have watched that man get the death penalty, and I am not a supporter of capital punishment.
My aunt had been right, I guess I was too sensitive for that stuff, and I am grateful for that. This is why I commend The Lovely Bones so much. It is a terrible thing that happens to Susie Salmon, but Alice Siebold depicts it in such a way that it is a bearable pain, and even leads us to some profound insights and to hope. Bravery is something I admire most in the world, and bravery is something to be honored and recognized in this great writer. Bravo!
It was a Christmas present last year, which sat beside my bed in my 'books to read asap' pile. It's quite a big stack really, I never have only one book on the go. As soon as I finished the Dark Tower, which I will discuss in a later post, I again had my transition problem, but I eventually settled into Lovely Bones. With an opening line like "My name is Susie Salmon, like the fish, and I was 12 when I was murdered on December 14th 1976..." not exactly the opening, but close, it had me hooked in right quick.
This is now one of my all time favorite books. It is small, not a very long read, but the content is huge and powerful. I am truly impressed at how Ms. Siebold has taken such a tragedy, the horrifying tragedy of a young murdered girl none the less, and brought forth such a moving and intelligent story. If any of you reading this hasn't read the book yet, I apologize for ruining anything for you, but you should go out right now and read it if you are interested.
One of my favorite aspects of the story is the description of Susie's heaven, down from which she gazes and observes the rest of us, and especially her family. If such a tragedy has not occurred to us, we can hardly imagine what it would do to a family, but Ms. Siebold depicts the breakdown and complicated pain Susie's family endures and cracks under. I cried many times while reading this book, and I have to commend a writer who can elicit such an emotional response from her readers. It amazes me how she could write this story and not make it damaging to me, the reader. That is one of the aspects that I really admire.
When I was 17 I started reading a book written by a journalist who had been at the Holmolka, and Bernardo trials. This journalist wrote the story of these killers, and what happened to their victims. As anyone who remembers the case (and who could not these days), there was a lot of video footage of the horrors that these two performed. Well the book was full of this stuff. My aunt had just finished reading it, and as I have always been interested in psychology (including criminal), I decided I wanted to read it next. She warned me that I may be too sensitive for the story, but I scoffed. Part way into the story, I started having nightmares, and horrible tortured thoughts. I closed the book somewhere in the middle of the first kidnapped girls ordeal, but that did not work. I kept having nightmares and horrific images in my mind. Inside me it felt like the girl was still trapped and being so horribly abused, so I re-opened the book and read just until he finally killed her. After that I closed it for good and cried my heart out for those girls. It took me months to stop seeing them in my mind. There was a time when I wished I could have watched that man get the death penalty, and I am not a supporter of capital punishment.
My aunt had been right, I guess I was too sensitive for that stuff, and I am grateful for that. This is why I commend The Lovely Bones so much. It is a terrible thing that happens to Susie Salmon, but Alice Siebold depicts it in such a way that it is a bearable pain, and even leads us to some profound insights and to hope. Bravery is something I admire most in the world, and bravery is something to be honored and recognized in this great writer. Bravo!
posted by clothosfate at 10:24 AM
3 Comments:
I've never read books like these. I don't really read crime on a small scale. I'd like to though, just never did.
You should do a post one day on your beliefs about capital punishment. That would be interesting. I'm against it because I don't trust any government to kill its own citizens. However, some people do deserve to die and in a world where governments can be trusted, I'd probably be for capital punishment.
I skipped most of this post to prevent spoiling the story for me. You've gotta be the 10th person to give this book the thumbs up, so I'm gonna read it.
I look forward to your Dark Tower post. I'm a huge King fan.
I am going to write posts on both of those things! Thanks for the ideas, and for coming back even though I slack a lot! ;p
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