The Lovely Bones: Book Review

I first heard about The Lovely Bones when my Aunt asked me to look for a DVD of this movie for my two little cousins. Their age was 6 and 7. She told me they were frantically asking her to buy them a copy. I searched on a few DVD stores but the staff tells me they don't have a copy anymore. Finally, I was able to buy one somewhere in North Edsa. One of the staff told me that it's their last copy.  Woah, rare species ba ito?? And so, curiosity got me.

From then, I've been wanting to get a copy not of the movie, but the book The Lovely Bones. Being a book lover, I decided that I want to read it first. It even became part of my Christmas Wishlist. I didn't get it on Christmas though. Maybe Santa haven't heard of that book yet? Or maybe he run out of copy too. He he. I searched on different book stores and even on Booksale but I could not find a copy. I did once, but when I returned to purchase it, the vendor told me someone already bought it. Awwwwww :(

Still, I did not gave up. Sometime around February, the owner of Bookbed (where I have purchased a couple of books before) texted me that she FOUND A COPY!!! Yay! Finuhllyyyy! I was so happy and excited at that time. And it was HARDBOUND! But unfortunately, I'm kind of broke at that time. Like a genie in a bottle, my boyfriend told me that I just go ahead and order the book because he's paying for it, consider it as a gift from him. Double hurrayyy!! I feel woozy! :)

I immediately placed an order from Bookbed and they had them shipped to my place immediately.

After reading the novel, here's my brief book review:

The Lovely Bones is a story about a fourteen year old girl named Susie Salmon who was raped and murdered on her way home from school. She narrates the story while she's in her heaven watching her family and friends go through grief, despair, anger, frustration and yearning for revenge. Susie witnessed them go through all these struggle until they were able to heal, recover, accept and forgive. She narrates the story by mixing the events that happened before she died, so we can get a picture of how their family was when she was still alive. Simultaneously, she keeps a day to day and year to year events moving along so we can see the progress about their family in accepting her death.

Throughout the story, I did not get weepy, instead i felt a strong surge of emotions in every sentence of the novel. However, I admit while I was on the latter part of the story, I got teary-eyed. I sniffed it away quickly before someone saw my tears. Yes, I was reading in public at that time.

There's this one part of the novel that got me. Susie says she still sneaks away to watch her family because she can't help it, and sometimes they still think of her because they can't help it either. I as well find myself at times, thinking about this novel, because I can't help that either. :)

As for the movie, I've already watched it. In my honest opinion, it did not fully capture Alice Sebold's heartbreaking story. The emotions I felt while watching was not as strong as what I've felt while reading the novel. Also, there were some important parts on the novel that was not included in the movie. Nevertheless, Peter Jackson deserves credit for trying to pull it off.