Sebold, Alice - Paula L. Woods (review date 7 July 2002)
Paula L. Woods (review date 7 July 2002)
SOURCE: Woods, Paula L. “Holding On and Letting Go.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (7 July 2002): 7.
[In the following review, Woods describes The Lovely Bones as “a strange and beautiful amalgam of novelistic styles.”]
The mere whisper of their names is painful—Polly Klaas, Danielle van Dam, Elizabeth Smart, Shanta Johnson—for they represent a parent's unspeakable heartache and a nation's vicarious nightmare. They are the little girls, and girls are most at risk for such mayhem. Some eventually are found dead; others simply disappear. We read their stories, hear the soundbites and wonder: What really happened to these lost girls? How on Earth do their families survive the horror? How would we bear such a tragedy in our own households? They are questions to which we seldom find answers, turning back ultimately, gratefully, to our happier-by-comparison lives.
Alice Sebold,...
[The entire page is 778 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Related Topics
