The only books that are being turned into films at the moment are either Harry Potter, or schmaltzy shite.

Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones

I’ve had my copy of The Lovely Bones for over a year, but had been motivated to read it by the film release. I’m always convinced that I’ll somehow absorb the ending by cultural osmosis and have the whole book ruined by listening to some teenager talking about Peter Jackson’s film on the bus one day. I don’t even use buses anymore.

So, I sat down last week and started to read The Lovely Bones, and I was genuinely enjoying it. There was nothing challenging there, and it certainly wasn’t very funny, but I like the idea that the audience knew whodunnit and it’s just a matter of how they are discovered. I always used to wish that Agatha Christie took this tactic when I was going through my early teenage Poirot phase. (He shits all over Miss Marple.) So yeah, The Lovely Bones was lovely enough until about two thirds of the way through, when Ruth The Token Alternative Lesbian started having visions of dead people, then vacating her body so that poor little murdered Susie could have sex with her schooldays boyfriend. Ridiculous. And I normally quite like ridiculous. But this was romantic ridiculous, which I have zero fucking time for. And then, just as it was improving again and the rapist dude was being pushed into a ditch by a flying icicle, Susie’s parents got back together and she made her brother’s garden bloom with dead girl vibes from beyond the grave. What a load of shite. I was waiting for Ruth and Susie’s Dad and sister to track down Mr Harvey The Rapist and bludgeon him to death while the police dude who shagged Susie’s Mum turned a blind eye and was slowly consumed by horrible guilt. Things never turn out the way you want them too.

Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
Publication date: 2002
Publisher: Picador
Price then: £7.99
Price now: £2.50
Bought from: Richard Booth’s Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye
From the synopsis: Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet…