SOURCE: Charles, Ron. “‘If I Should Die before I Wake, I Pray the Lord My Soul to Take’: In Alice Sebold's Debut Novel, the Dead Must Learn to Let Go, Too.” Christian Science Monitor (25 July 2002): 15.

In the following review, Charles admires The Lovely Bones for its utilization of both horror and beauty.

Don't start Lovely Bones unless you can finish it. The book begins with more horror than you could imagine, but closes with more beauty than you could hope for.

Still, there are reasons not to open this runaway bestseller. In the first chapter, 14-year-old Susie Salmon describes how she was enticed into a little cave by a neighbor on a snowy day. He stuffs her hat into her mouth. They both hear her mother calling her for dinner. He rapes her, cuts her throat, and then dismembers the body. It's the most terrifying scene I've ever...