The Lovely Bones

In the middle of my hectic winter break my mother managed to stop me in between going out with my friends, and running to work, and asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I hadn't thought about this question since I was about eleven or twelve. I never really wanted anything anymore, besides money, because I need money for the things I need, rather than want. Regardless, I told her I wanted the oh so controversial book written by Tucker Max entitled, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. She said that sounds retarded and asked me what else I wanted. I told her sweat pants, and then I thought of a book everyone had been talking about lately and telling me how amazing it was, and that book was entitled, The Lovely Bones.

Sure enough Christmas Eve comes along and I open one of my presents and there is the precious book itself. I was so excited to start reading again, sometimes I get so busy I forget that I can do things like read. I started the book that evening and right off the bat it was extremely interesting, and included a rape and murder scene within the first fifteen minutes. After that, I became extremely busy with work and did not really have time to keep up with the book but even when I did pick it back up I could never remember where I left off and it was all so confusing about this fantasy heaven world she lives in. I just have some advice for writers, I feel if you open up a book with the sentence, "I was fourteen years old when I was murdered," and obviously the book is written from someone from the other side, you have to keep up that suspicion and intensity through out the entire book. That is why I stopped reading Twilight after the first book, I don't feel like reading three hundred pages to find out something that could have taken a chapter and a half-if that- to explain!

Maybe I should have given the book another chance, but I was at Target and was looking in the memoirs section seeing familiar titles such as Smashed, which if I remember correctly is about a girl who drinks away her adolescent years. Among the titles was a book called, Please Stop Laughing At Me, by Jodee Blanco. I turned the book over to find out it was about a woman who was bullied all the way from kindergarten through high school. She talked about being bullied, and what lasting effects it really leaves on children and teens. I am in the middle of it now and so far am impressed with the writing, but I think I know why she was bullied...