The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
I watched this film when I was way too young. Let’s be honest, no matter your age, this film will traumatise you. I’d always wanted to read it, and I owned the physical book for a very long time, but knowing how the story plays out, I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up. I’m the type of person that reads for enjoyment, I want books to make me feel better and bring a sense of wonder. The Lovely Bones is not the book for that.
My decision to get rid of this book was not one I made easily. However, when I was packing to move house a year and a half ago, I needed to cull my book collection. So, goodbye The Lovely Bones. Maybe I’ll purchase you on my Kindle some day.
Synopsis: “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.”
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her — her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.
How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
This book actually belonged to my mom but she gave it to me when I went to university. Now, to make that make more sense. I studied music journalism and Caitlin Moran is one of my favourite journalists. For some reason, I was convinced I’d have time during uni to read this book but that never happened. My obsession with Caitlin Moran died very quickly after university, as did my love for writing about music.
I think I probably would have enjoyed this if I had read it at the time. Unfortunately now, I don’t think it’s something I would find myself reaching for.
Synopsis: What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn’t enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself.
It’s 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there’s no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes—but without the dying young bit.
By sixteen, she’s smoking cigarettes, getting drunk and working for a music paper. She’s writing pornographic letters to rock-stars, having all the kinds of sex with all kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less.
But what happens when Johanna realizes she’s built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks, enough to build a girl after all?
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