The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold has been on my TBR list for as long as I can remember. The film, of the same name, featuring Saorise Ronan, Stanley Tucci and Mark Wahlberg has been a firm favourite of mine since the day I first saw it.

I really wanted to love this book because of how much I adore the film. Usually, I would read the book before watching any form of adaptation but this was one of the rarer occasions where I have seen the film first. I always try to keep books and films as two separate entities but whilst reading this book I found this particularly hard for some reason. 

I absolutely loved the first 100 or so pages but after that, it felt like I was wading through mud in order to get to the end of the book. One of the main reasons why I loved this story so much is because of the main character Susie Salmon. Susie is narrating from beyond the grave about her life and untimely death. However, after we find out about how she met her killer and her death the narrative really drags throughout the middle of the book. I just didn’t care for all the flashbacks to her childhood.

Towards the end of the book, it does pick up as we gain some sort of conclusion surrounding Susie’s death but other than I found this a very hard read to finish. Since finishing I have re-watched the film and it still resides on the list of my favourite films. This is one of the few occasions where I greatly prefer the adaptations over the book. 

Overall, I gave The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold a 3⭐️ rating.

M🌸