#19 in Contemporary fiction
The Lovely Bones
- 351
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
- Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel
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Our view
Narrated by a murdered girl who looks down on her family from her own heaven, this is a novel about grief far more than about the crime. Its mood is thoughtful, and some readers who come for a murder mystery find it dull enough to give up early. The opening is harrowing; what follows suits those who want an ultimately hopeful story of a family learning to live on.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by American writer Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from a personal heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received critical praise and became an instant bestseller.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.1 across 1,343 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 7.2 — the Contemporary fiction average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 6.8 | 78 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 7.1 | 1.3K | 94% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Lovely Bones?
It has 351 pages — longer than 50% of the ranked books in Contemporary fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Contemporary fiction — with scores between 7.5 and 8.2, closest to this book.
