Saturday, August 28, 2010

11/100

Book: The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

    I focused very hard on the dead geranium in his line of vision. I thought if I could make it bloom he would have his answer. In my heaven it bloomed. In my heaven geranium petals swirled in eddies up to my waist. On Earth nothing happened.
    But through the snow I noticed this: my father was looking toward the green house in a new way. He had begun to wonder.

Note: The book that spawned the movie. I watched the latter first, and although I really wanted to like it, I found it disappointing (oh Peter Jackson). Even without reading the novel I knew they were spending far too much time on Susie's heaven and her perspective, and not on the rest of the plot or characters, which didn't make much sense considering the time and place Susie lived in. Surely there was more to see, more people involved rather than just Susie and her parents. For example her sister, who has a very strong part to play in the story, but is almost barely featured in the movie except as an accessory to her father's grief. 

I found the book more satisfying and ended up enjoying it quite a bit with it's variety of characters. I especially enjoyed seeing the ways different characters dealt with their grief and the horror of the crime. It was a more rounded story with Susie overseeing all, and in the book you got better insight into what the dead do when they're gone, who they visit, what they long for and subsequently receive in heaven. Or what they don't. 

There were definitely some bits I didn't like, but overall I thought it was a very good read.  

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