I’m not knocking it…but the entire time I was reading Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, I couldn’t help but think that this book would be perfect for the older mom demo. I mean come on – a creepy neighbor rapes and kills a little girl, and then the girl walks her family through the grieving process from heaven. FROM HEAVEN.
I’m not well-read enough to say “this is an entirely unique idea” or “Sebold ripped the narrator-in-heaven idea from…” but I will say that it was a clever hook that kept my interest enough to breeze through the book in a week or so.
And y’all know that I’m a sucker for a good opening line, and this one got me right away: My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.
I really wanted to read this book before seeing the movie which is in theaters now, but I really don’t have any interest in paying to go sit and watch a story I just read. So I may just wait until I can rent it, or I might forget about it and never actually see the movie. Who knows.
On a side note, I was reading this blog and was tempted to try to read 100 books in 2010. Do you think that goal is too lofty?
People I respect love the hell out of Nick Hornby, but I’ve never really been too interested in picking him up. I saw High Fidelity the movie, but never read any of Hornby’s novels. I know that I have all of those books I got for Christmas, but because of moving they are all in a box and I had to stop at Barnes & Noble and use the gift card to buy this one.
2 Comments
I love your blog! But I hated Lovely Bones. And, I am in the mom demo. While reading it, I just wanted to pull my hair out, strand by strand.
i like the idea of the book challenge….maybe enough to do it myself!