Book Discussion: The Lovely Bones
 

please have Chapters 1-5 read by August 27. discussions will begin on the 28th.

I'm in the middle of Chapter 3.

I think that's more than enough time, but some who may not have a ton of spare time or are slow readers RYAN! may need it. :D So I think it's OK.

:D

I think August 31st is great. I just picked up the book yesterday and plan to read on the plane later this week.

Ok by me! :)

****, by then I'll probably be finished with it already. :laugh:

I can commit to finishing Chaps 1-5 by August 27th if you want to move the date up and start discussing on Monday.

Sounds good to me- this is a re-read for me.

done.

though, y'all will have to start without me cause I'm sure I'll still be hung over. I even went ahead and took off from work.

^^Oh, I see you have a birthday coming up! How about Tuesday 28th then. We can't start w/o our leader.

Jazzy, I cannot believe you're putting your birthday before this very important deadline. :mad:



:p

a bitch can not live on chiffon and/or internet romanticism alone honey. ;)

OK, I read my assigned chapters last night. :D Can I post my thoughts, or should we all wait until the 28th? EDIT: never mind. i just read jazmen's first post.

I just read Chaps 1-6 on the plane. Great book but makes me uncomfortable.

^ Too real? Or just the fact that it's all about death & the afterlife?

^^Let's wait for the discussion. :woohoo:

Edit: it's a great read, though. I haven't read so many pages nonstop in ages.

i'm buying a copy tonite, i'll read the chapters over the weekend~ the lady at border's said it was a great book~

i finally got my copy, border's had it in hard back in their bargin bin for 6.00~ i read the 1st 5 & can't wait for the discussion!!!~

Bumping this thread up for tomorrow's discussion. :D

Can't wait! I purposefully slowed down reading so I could discuss the appropriate chapters.

salmon is a bit funny i thought too~ i love her little brothers name buckley tho~

ok. this book has been an easy read for sure. it hasn't quite captivated me the way I expected it to, but it's very good. I love the way the author writes, but I find myself getting lost in the narrative sometimes. like when she goes from talking about her heaven (which, by the way, irks me that she always refers to it as my heaven...I'd like to see a little variation) to talking about her family to talking about the kids at school. sometimes, I get lost and have to back up. I don't like the name "Salmon" at all, but I'm hoping it plays a part later.

How dare you try to join our very private book discussion, Betsy! You have some nerve lady. :mad:


:lol: Of course you're welcome to join us! This is the first time we've done anything like this, so it's new to all of us.

I guess your question about her name can get us started. The answer to your question is yes! I was like "Salmon? Really? Why not Trout or Bass then?" I typically don't love double initials either, so yeah, it bugs me a bit. And Susie - I guess it was still a somewhat common name in the 70's when the novel takes place, but still. Perhaps the author wanted to imply that she was very normal, very plain, a "regular" girl. Ann or Jane probably could have worked too. But then, there aren't good fish names to go with those names. :laugh: I guess she didn't want to use a really exotic name. Like Paula. :rolleyes:

Plus, it's a good name to allude to her age & mindset with - her comment that she wanted to go by Susan next year in high school - the fact that Susie was still being used lets us know how innocent & childish she still was in some aspects of her life, still a kid in many ways.

It's obvious that at 14, she was still very naive. Also, very trustful & respectful (and a bit afraid?) of her elders, which I think had much to do with the reason why she went with Mr. Harvey. It's like she didn't want to offend him, or seem disrespectful.

I love the idea of "my heaven." And the fact that everyone's is different, but they can overlap/ fit together. I'm struck by the fact that she hasn't seen any family members who've already passed. Maybe she will later in the book. Love that you can deciede how it looks, how it smells, etc.

The writing really gets to me. "Mr. Harvey wore his innocence like a comfortable old coat." Her mother bracing herself to hear "inconsequential details that others investing meaning in." (So what? So you found her book? That doesn't mean anything!) There was a riot inside My. Harevy, but it is calm. Very descriptive (a piss poor word, I know, but it's all I can think of. I really need a thesaurus.)

I found a pretty big error in the book, but I forgot to bring it with me today to point it out. :rolleyes: I'll describe it tomorrow.

I'm really enjoying the book. I am troubled by the "heaven" Susie is in. Like Paula, I thought she'd be reunited with deceased family members. That is the "other side" that I'm hoping exists if there is one. Instead, she has an "intake counselor" (which means that we have jobs when we die, yuck). I also don't know what I think about the fact that she's so focused on what happened to her and wanting Harvey to be caught. I'd like to believe that the minute our soul leaves the body, we really don't care about such things. Perhaps we'll find later in the book that she does let go.

I'm particularly intrigued by Ruth and how she fits in with all of this.

Finally, I wonder if the story would be more interesting if we didn't know right off that bat who committed the crime, and that it was more of a murder mystery narrated by Susie. I can't decided--what do others think?

so far i am loving it & had to restrain myself from going further than chapter 5~ i was uncomfortable w/ the subject matter of how susie died, maybe because a friend of mine's daughter was killed in a similar fashion in real life sans the hole, it was so real for me & that was sad~ i got teary eyed when susie's father was trying to explain to her little brother buckley that she was dead~ i too wondering about "susie's heaven", why there were no one from her family to greet her when she passes~ the intake person fanny reminded me of the lady helping the couple realize they were dead in "beetlejuice", i'm sorry, but she was the 1st person i thought of:laugh:~ i do love how the writer writes, i like her description of things, i like a book that you can imagine it playing like a film in your head~

honestly, this is the main motivating factor for me to read the book. I'm like you...I think there was too much told at the beginning. I could change my mind a few chapters from now though.

1 - Wondering if it's another nod to her age - perhaps if she had been killed when she were older, she would be more at peace? Or, because it was a violent death & her family is in so much pain, she just can't let it go yet?

That's awful. :distress:


I know what you guys mean, but I think the author may have done it this way on purpose - to make sure it did not feel like a "murder mystery", but more of a dramatic fiction work. Plus, to tell us who did it so soon is more unexpected, don't you think?

i do agree with that~ knowing who did it didn't bother me as much as her saying that a new familly now lived in his home, also mentioning the blood stain on the garage floor, the realtor thinking it was grease, & that she wasn't his 1st~
him having moved makes me wonder if & how are they gonna catch him?~

no, I think you're right. it is interesting to have a sort of omnipotent POV...and to see things from varying angles. I just think she's going to have to really work to keep me into the book without me going :rolleyes: every few pages. there are only so many snowy nights, Xmas mornings and fluffy first kisses I can stand, ya know?

I wondered about that also, but I really think that's going to change, because right now it seems like she is focusing on the people she left behind on earth. We've had plenty of talk about that, but little time has been spent in her 'heaven'.

Well, isn't one of the main perks of heaven that people can all choose what, where, when and how they do things? I got the impression this lady wanted to be that person. Some people do love their jobs. ;)

I don't know. Wouldn't it be logical for people to want closure? Or at least have closure for the people they leave behind? I don't think you suddenly become this little selfish person who doesn't care anymore what goes around on earth. Isn't that also why ghosts stick around, because they have unfinished business to take care of?

Exactly what I thought also. A few chapters in and we already know everything that happened and how it affected her family. I wonder what we'll get faced with throughout the rest of this book. But I am just a sucker for mystery, so I would have loved to solve that puzzle.

I'm having a hard time deciding how to respond in this thread, because I have read the whole book. I may need to NOT post until we're all done because I don't want to give anything away.

I love how the author chose this particular age for Susie's death. She is right on the edge of maturing and changing and she isn't given the chance to do that on earth.

I also enjoyed the idea of creating our own heaven. I will say that I was somewhat disappointed in some of Susie's heaven choices, but I had to remember that she is only 14 and her heaven would have to be based on her own experiences.

I read the book a few years ago, and am just going to intersperse some comments here and there when they're relevant. I promise not to give anything away. :)

I liked Sebold's concept of the "personal heaven." I think at Susie's young age of 14, she may not have had too many relatives to reunite with in heaven. If I would have passed at 14, my parents and all four of my grandparents would have still been living.

she was attacked, beaten and raped in a park when she was 18.

I can't speak for all, but as a writer you can't not be influenced by personal experience. everything I've ever written, however full of the fantastic, has been plucked from either my reality or someone very close to me.

I haven't read it, but this book is a memoir regarding her attack/rape.

All true. And this does jive with my personal experiences (i.e., when someone close to me dies, I get signs from them for a little while and then they stop...meaning they stick around a bit to help the grieving and then at some point it's time for them to move on.

What worries me, though, is the concept that when the soul leaves the body, it can retain the same negative feelings that we experience in human form (regret, anger, desire for revenge, etc.) It's kind of frightening to think that I could go out right now, get killed by a drunk driver, and then spend a long time just hovering around earth worrying about my friends/family's reactions and whether or not the person will go to jail. Yet not able to speak or really do much more than blow some wind in someone's hair.

It's too hard to explain...but it makes me feel anxiety just thinking about it! I'd much rather have the experience that I go straight to the other side, become reunited with loved ones, and feel an overwhelming sense of peace, love, joy, etc.

^^I was going to ask you about your seminar. You should bump up your thread about it and tell us more! Did you get a reading?

as someone with an English degree, I can tell you that they are notorious for doing that. I came home with a lot of B's as well because I wouldn't buy into it.
I saw this on the back cover of The Lovely Bones. thanks!

I totally get where you're coming from and without me coming into this discussion with my personal feelings regarding the existence of Heaven I will go into this mainly focusing on the book.

To me it seems like Susie doesn't harbor many negative feelings, just a general concern for her family and their well-being. I don't think that's a negative feeling perse, it all is connected with peace and love. I don't think she's required to stick around and watch her family unfold, I think that she derives peace from watching out for her family. She is free to create her own Heaven, yet she chooses to stick around instead of keeping all the love, joy and peace to herself, which she could easily do. It might seem as an obligation, but I don't think it really is.

I thought that a good point got brought up earlier. Susie probably doesn't have many family members to turn to in Heaven because of her age. I am eleven years older than her and there would only be one person I would want to meet up with again should I go to Heaven.

Answer #1: I don't think they ran any tests on the cap. I think they just noticed that it had lots of saliva on it and deduced that meant it had been shoved in her mouth. I'm not sure they said it was proof positive, but I have to go back and check. These days, of course, they would test the saliva to determine whose it was.

Answer #2: I am very interested in Ruth's character and I'm also curious to know if Mr. Harvey ever gets caught, or if Susie winds up "moving on" without everything getting resolved. I am now another 4 or 5 chapters into the story and it is starting to drag a bit. I feel like the book opened with a BANG and then stalls. Still, it's an enjoyable read.

I found a pretty big error in the book. On page 61 (paperback version), Susie's father tell the detective why he is suspicious of Mr. Harvey. One of the reasons he gives is that Harvey said Susie's name to him when they were building the tent together (pages 54-57). I've reread and reread that section, and Harvey never once mentions Susie's name.

Not a big deal, but kind of sloppy.

are you talking about at the bottom of page 61 ("about saying my name")? I took that to mean when Susie's father says her name and it made Mr. Harvey uncomfortable. I could have read that wrong though.