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The Lovely Bones
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)

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Published:
Hachette Audio 2007
Accelerated Reader:
IL: UG - BL: 6 - AR Pts: 16
Lexile measure:
890L
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her — her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.
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Format:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen
Edition:
Unabridged, Booktrack
Street Date:
08/01/2007
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781600240690
Accelerated Reader:
UG
Level 6, 16 Points
Lexile measure:
890
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Alice Sebold. (2007). The Lovely Bones. Unabridged, Booktrack Hachette Audio.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Alice Sebold. 2007. The Lovely Bones. Hachette Audio.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones. Hachette Audio, 2007.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Alice Sebold. The Lovely Bones. Unabridged, Booktrack Hachette Audio, 2007.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
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Shared Digital Collection84
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Grouped Work ID:
d33d1ff6-7afb-b80b-f41c-c73d2735dea2
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 19:13:27
Date Updated:
May 02, 2022 19:34:34
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 26, 2024 17:50:31
Last Metadata Change:
Jan 28, 2024 10:52:42
Last Availability Check:
Mar 26, 2024 17:50:35
Last Availability Change:
Mar 24, 2024 18:39:40
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 28, 2024 11:17:57

OverDrive Product Record

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      • value: murders
      • value: afterlife
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      • value: serial killer
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      • value: ya suspense
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edition
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title
The Lovely Bones
fullDescription
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her — her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.
gradeLevels
      • value: Grade 4
      • value: Grade 5
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        September 3, 2007
        Reading her breakout novel, Sebold's even, unemotional voice is a good match for both the drab setting of a Midwest town enduring the 1970s and for her matter-of-fact writing, which manages to seem grounded even as the protagonist narrates from heaven after her brutal murder. Sebold doesn't bother with voicing characters differently; the murdered girl, Susie Salmon, is the listener's window into the world she was forced to leave behind, and Sebold uses a flat, deliberate voice that manages to sound both weary and wistful. Snatches of melancholy chamber music close each track and provide more explicit emotion. What Sebold's voice lacks in stylistic flourish she makes up for with perfect pacing. In an introductory segment, Sebold recounts the novel's genesis and mentions that part of her working process involves reading everything back to herself, which explains her expert rhythm. On the final disc, Sebold reads the first chapter of her 2007 novel, The Almost Moon. While Sebold's fans will be eager for the chance to hear her read, the uninitiated may wish for a bit more passion in her presentation. A Back Bay Books paperback (Reviews, June 17, 2002).

      • premium: True
      • source: AudioFile Magazine
      • content: I was 14 when I was murdered . . . . That's the opening and also the astonishing conceit of this first novel. It's narrated from heaven. Tricked, raped, and knifed to death, Susie Salmon was the sort of innocent who had just learned that "gloves meant you were an adult and mittens meant you weren't." The book was raved about in advance by Jonathan Franzen and Anna Quindlen, and so its success seems guaranteed. This is a dream, of course, a wish fulfillment, but this is a dream with grit. Alyssa Bresnahan brings the corpse to passionate life, her voice by turns ecstatic and heavy with tears. Susie dies still thinking of first kisses. When the novel closes, she's a woman fulfilled and has learned to "hold the world without me in it." B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from June 17, 2002
        HSebold's first novel—after her memoir, Lucky—is a small but far from minor miracle. Sebold has taken a grim, media-exploited subject and fashioned from it a story that is both tragic and full of light and grace. The novel begins swiftly. In the second sentence, Sebold's narrator, Susie Salmon, announces, "I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." Susie is taking a shortcut through a cornfield when a neighbor lures her to his hideaway. The description of the crime is chilling, but never vulgar, and Sebold maintains this delicate balance between homely and horrid as she depicts the progress of grief for Susie's family and friends. She captures the odd alliances forged and the relationships ruined: the shattered father who buries his sadness trying to gather evidence, the mother who escapes "her ruined heart, in merciful adultery." At the same time, Sebold brings to life an entire suburban community, from the mortician's son to the handsome biker dropout who quietly helps investigate Susie's murder. Much as this novel is about "the lovely bones" growing around Susie's absence, it is also full of suspense and written in lithe, resilient prose that by itself delights. Sebold's most dazzling stroke, among many bold ones, is to narrate the story from Susie's heaven (a place where wishing is having), providing the warmth of a first-person narration and the freedom of an omniscient one. It might be this that gives Sebold's novel its special flavor, for in Susie's every observation and memory—of the smell of skunk or the touch of spider webs—is the reminder that life is sweet and funny and surprising,. Agent, Henry Dunow. (July 3)Forecast:Sebold's memoir,
        Lucky, was the account of her rape in 1981, at Syracuse University. It is, of course, impossible to read
        The Lovely Bones without considering the memoir, but the novel moves Sebold effortlessly into literary territory. A long list of writers—including Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen—blurb
        The Lovely Bones, and booksellers should expect the novel to move quickly; the early buzz has been considerable. Foreign rights have been sold in England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain and Sweden, with film rights to Film Four.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        Starred review from May 15, 2002
        Sebold, whose previous book, Lucky, told of her own rape and the subsequent trial of her attacker, here offers a powerful first novel, narrated by Susie Salmon, in heaven. Brutally raped and murdered by a deceptively mild-mannered neighbor, Susie begins with a compelling description of her death. During the next ten years, she watches over her family and friends as they struggle to cope with her murder. She observes their disintegrating lives with compassion and occasionally attempts, sometimes successfully, to communicate her love to them. Although the lives of all who knew her well are shaped by her tragic death, eventually her family and friends survive their pain and grief. In Sebold's heaven, Susie continues to grow emotionally. She learns that human existence is "the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light all of it part of navigating the unknown." Sebold's compelling and sometimes poetic prose style and unsparing vision transform Susie's tragedy into an ultimately rewarding novel. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/02.] Cheryl L. Conway, Univ. of Arkansas Lib., Fayetteville

        Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: School Library Journal
      • content:

        October 1, 2002
        Adult/High School-"I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973," says Susie Salmon in this intriguing novel. Teens will immediately be drawn into this account of a girl who was raped and killed, and tells her story from "heaven." She realizes gradually that she is in an interim heaven until she can let go of her earthly concerns. The place is like school with Seventeen for a textbook and no teachers. On Earth, her mother needs to leave the family for a time, her sister seems to have Susie constantly in her thoughts, her young brother grows into a pensive preteen, and her grief-stricken father spends much of his time seeking out the murderer, even after it seems that the police have given up. The narrator observes the disparate ways her family and friends cope, and finally sees that they are resolving their grief as "the lovely bones" of their lives knit themselves around the empty space that was her life. While the subject matter is grim, the telling is light and frequently humorous-Susie remains 14 even though 8 years pass in the other characters' lives. This novel will encourage discussion. There is a slight feeling of magical realism, but there is grounding in real adolescence.-Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VA

        Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        March 15, 2002
        The heroine of Sebold's first novel (after the memoir Lucky) is already dead, but that doesn't keep her from talking. Teenager Susie Salmon looks down benevolently from Heaven as her family heals and her murderer is run to ground.

        Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from May 1, 2002
        Few novels, debut or otherwise, are as masterful or as compelling as Sebold's. Her heroine, 14-year-old Suzy Salmon, is murdered in the first chapter, on her way home from school. Suzy narrates the story from heaven, viewing the devastating effects of her murder on her family. Each member reacts differently: her gentle father grieves quietly, intent on finding her killer; her aloof mother retreats from the family; her tough younger sister, Lindsey, keeps everything inside, except for the occasional moment when she tentatively opens up to her boyfriend; and her four-year-old brother, Bucky, longs for his older sister and can't comprehend her absence. Suzy also watches Ray Singh, the boy who kissed her for the first time, who represents all of her lost hopes, and Ruth Connors, who became obsessed with death and murder after Suzy's passing. Under Suzy's watchful eye, the members of her family individually grow away from her murder, each shaped by it in their own way. In heaven, Suzy herself continues to grapple with her death as well, still longing for her family and for Earth, until she is finally granted a wish that allows her to fulfill one of her dreams. Sebold's beautiful novel shows how a tragedy can tear a family apart, and bring them back together again. She challenges us to re-imagine happy endings, as she brings the novel to a conclusion that is unfalteringly magnificent. And she paints, with an artist's precision, a portrait of a world where the terrible and the miraculous can and do co-exist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: AudioFile Magazine
      • content: It's an exceptional joy to hear an author read her own work, as the listener is privy to each pause and nuance of language that is intended. Alice Sebold's narration of her work is as touching and evocative as the novel itself. This exclusive edition also includes an introduction by Sebold, which includes insights on the novel's subject matter and source of inspiration. With this intimate knowledge, protagonist Susie Salmon becomes more real, and each heart-wrenching scene is more poignant. Sebold's presentation haunts the listener even when the story is done. As a bonus, a peek at her newest work, THE ALMOST MOON, entices the listener to mark it as a must-listen. D.L.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
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shortDescription
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her — her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.
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awards
      • source: Horror Writers Association
      • value: Bram Stoker Award
      • source: Young Adult Library Services Association
      • value: Best Fiction for Young Adults
publisher
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      • description: Fiction / Ghost
      • code: FIC019000
      • description: Fiction / Literary
      • code: FIC045000
      • description: Fiction / Family Life / General