Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Sebold, Alice - Virginia Quarterly Review (review date autumn 2002)

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Virginia Quarterly Review (review date autumn 2002)

SOURCE: Review of The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. Virginia Quarterly Review 78, no. 4 (autumn 2002): 126.

[In the following review, the critic praises Sebold's The Lovely Bones, citing the author's originality and attention to detail.]

If someone were to recommend to me a book about a murdered 14-year-old girl who tells her tale from Heaven, I would flee, fearful of drowning in sentiment and cliché. Much to my surprise, and to Sebold's considerable skills as a novelist, this book [The Lovely Bones]—which does indeed adopt the voice of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a next-door neighbor—is fresh, exquisitely crafted, original, and deeply moving. Sebold, author of a memoir of her own horrific rape (Lucky), draws us powerfully into Susie's world as she watches her family—father, mother, younger sister...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Alice Sebold and Ann Darby (interview date 17 June 2002)
   2. Paula L. Woods (review date 7 July 2002)
   3. Ron Charles (review date 25 July 2002)
   4. Charlotte Abbott (essay date 29 July 2002)
   5. Lisa Allardice (review date 19 August 2002)
   6. Sarah Churchwell (review date 23 August 2002)
   7. Virginia Quarterly Review (review date autumn 2002)
   8. Stephen H. Webb (review date 9-22 October 2002)
   9. Rebecca Mead (review date 17 October 2002)
   10. Gordon Phinn (review date November 2002)
   11. Daniel Mendelsohn (essay date 16 January 2003)
   12. Joyce Carol Oates (review date 20 June 2003)
   13. Claudia FitzHerbert (review date 21 June 2003)
   14. Andrea Dworkin (review date 30 June 2003)
   15. Doris L. Eder (essay date 2004)
   16. Kenneth Womack (essay date 2004)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Alice Sebold