“The Lovely Bones,” by Alice Sebold

FM’s ratings:

1. Premise 9
2. Prose 8
3. Plot 7
4. Characters 8
5. Overall 8

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

Is this a chick-lit book? I suppose it is, and maybe the reservations I have about it stem from that. The premise of the girl who died too young - in this case, raped and murdered - and watching the aftermath from "above" - in this case, her own personalized "heaven" - reminds me very much of the equally interesting novel "The Assembler of Parts," by Raoul Wientzen. One could say that's a chick-lit book as well. Does that mean I'm not supposed to appreciate these books? I loved the "Twilight" books, often denigrated as the worst kind of chick-lit. I like to think I take quality as I find it. There was a LOT about this book to admire. The prose is mostly very good, though it occasionally lapsed into a dreamy poeticism that came perilously close to incoherence. The plot had that stretched-out feeling of a book that needed padding to meet a certain length requirement. If that's the case, it was done rather well, but the last third of the book did tend to drag a bit. The resolution of the murderer finally meeting his end is almost an afterthought, giving no closure whatsoever to the other characters - possibly an attempt at depicting how these thing actually happen in real life. The transfer of souls from "heaven" to earthly body that took place toward the climax - AS the climax, perhaps - was an unexpected and fascinating twist. It did contain the only scene that might inexplicably move the movie version (haven't seen it - yet!) from PG to R. Recommended - with some reservations.