Lucky - Alice Sebold

...Dad remarks that it was lucky that Alice was attacked and not her older sister, Alice is so much stronger, so much more able to cope. I wonder how she forgave her Father, how she managed to smile and agree, how she seemed to grow ever closer to her somewhat distant parents in the years following. Alice is told by the police that she is lucky to be alive, that indeed in the same place she had been raped, another girl had been murdered and dismembered. ...
...myself, against my will, wondering how I would cope in the same situation. Perhaps this was Alice's intent. To make us more aware as well as baring her soul. I doubt I could forgive the flippant remarks, could understand the ignorance behind them. I doubt I could have thought of the words to escape the rapist and I seriously doubt that in the years that followed I could have held my life together and achieved as much as Alice Sebold. Yes, she went ...

whoopidoo 24.05.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

An eighteen-year-old virgin, a freshman at Syracuse University is raped at knifepoint on her way back to the Campus after visiting a friend. She is attacked from behind, dragged down a disused tunnel and subjected to a terrifying and brutal ordeal during which she is not only sexually molested but also physically attacked and her tormentor uses psychological techniques to maintain the upper hand. When her attacker has finally had enough she manages ...
...is raised. We are then taken through the first steps of the aftermath of her ordeal. The hospital examinations, the evidence gathering and the police interview where Alice is so tired she can barely think in a coherent manner let alone be accurate with everything she is stating. When she gets back to her room she contacts her parents but refuses to rest until they get there, until they arrive to take her home. She dresses in her smartest clothes ...

rachels_ratty 12.06.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...and yet heartbreaking. Lucky tells us her own story, taking you through how she was brutally raped when she was a mere 18 year old freshman student, niave in the ways of the world almost, her innocence made it all the more difficult to read, when I say difficult what I should really mention here is how compelled I was, how after the first few pages I was unable to put it down yet often felt like sticking it in a drawer never to be opened again, but ...
...involved told her she was lucky because some time before her attack, a young girl went through a similar experience, brutally raped, murdered and her body dismembered but somehow I don’t believe Alice felt lucky to be alive, would you? There was times within this 251 page book I had difficulty retaining interest, as there seemed to be a lot of padding that to me was unnecessary, but all in all I would still recommend, a truly gifted lady and ...

herby30 07.02.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...who told her she was lucky not to have been murdered as well as raped. Another young girl had been murdered in the same place near the university. There are probably times after the rape when Alice wishes she were dead too. The first chapter describes the actual event with the rapist and is very disturbing and gruesome to read. He pulled a knife on her and strangled her until she went unconscous for a second. After that she decided that if she was ...
...and give him what he asked for. He raped her and she bled and then he forced her to have oral sex with him too. She did scream when she heard some passers by but she wasn’t heard and she couldn’t escape. Bizarrely once he had finished with her he seemed to be upset and even cried, and asked her name, but then he even stole her eight dollars that she had. She has to find her way back to the halls of residence where she lives covered in blood and with ...

ClaireG86 13.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

Having read and really enjoyed The Lovely Bones I was keen to read Lucky. I kept it on my shelf for a long time because I didn’t feel ready to read this story of how the author, Alice Sebold was brutally attacked and raped at the age of 18. It is a subject that brings fear into the hearts of anyone to think that this disgusting act could happen to a loved one, and yet it goes on. This is Alice Sebold’s story: From the first sentence ...
...to read on but in shock at what is happening, this is because you are taken right to the attack itself. The first line is ‘This is what I remember. My lips were cut. I bit down on them when he grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth’ I don’t recall ever reading a book with such a powerful beginning. You are taken straight to the rape, it is almost as if you have stumbled on this and are watching but can do nothing to stop it ...

ruth23 22.06.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...this thought. Was Alice lucky – or unlucky? I think we all have our own views. What I see in Alice is a hugely brave and strong woman. ‘You save yourself, or you remain unsaved’. I, for one, am glad to have read this book. Inspiring and heart wrenching. 5 stars. Thanks for reading. ...

kirstymack80 05.10.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...About the Book Lucky is a a short memoir, 251 pages long, which I managed to read in a couple of hours. The first chapter deals with the rape of Alice, the author of the book, when she was an eighteen year old college student and virgin. The account is detailed and graphic but is told with a sense of distance. As the reader you are acutely aware that you are visualising this brutal attack through the memory of the victim. In one passage Alice writes: ...
...In a sense Lucky is a book about how we all fail in ways as human beings. A book about how our own eccentrictites and beliefs impact on others who need empathy and impartiality. In many ways, Alice is too forgiving of a mother who wants her to stay home and not return to campus, of a father who cannot show affection and a sister who is "too weak to cope with this". The rapist is caught after Alice sees him and he speaks to her in the street. The ...

littlem 28.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...I found the tone of Lucky much starker than the Lovely Bones, and much more effectual than I had expected. Lucky is the account of a rape that Alice Seebold herself experienced while at college. She was a virgin, 18 years old and to an extent coasting in the life she led until the point where she was brutally raped. The book describes the event itself, and follows through with the aftermath – how she dealt with it both practically and emotionally, ...
...her in the months and years afterwards. Inclusion of how the police dealt with the matter makes for a very rounded novel about a dark issue. The book opens with harsh details of what happened and, although I found them harrowing to read, the first few pages are excellently written – to the point where I had to put the book down and pick it up again when my stomach felt stronger. Be under no illusions before you start reading – the thoughts and feelings ...

Niculyatt 20.12.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...book to The Lovely Bones, Lucky is Alice Sebold’s personal experience of rape, the psychological effects of rape, the experience of reporting rape, the trial of rape, and eventually the justice of the trial. The book tells the effects in graphic detail in retrospect of 15 years after the event. It cements you to every tiny recollection of emotion she experienced. Although a harrowing read in the initial chapters, the book takes you through every ...
...The negative of rape has through this book enlightened me to the positives that people have the ability to experience through negative experiences. And I think this is where the term ‘blessed’ comes into action. Alice Sebold has been blessed, with the ability to write, the ability to communicate experiences to others and the ability to recover and form relationships, over come demons and a memory that proved vital in insuring justice was done. I ...

Lush1 14.10.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...the book Alice states that Lucky is her short-hand for "blessed". This is the beautiful acceptance and realisation of her opportunities available now. I would reccomend this book to anyone who has a heart. :) Priced at £7.99 But available from Amazon.co.uk for £3.99 Published by Picador. www.picador.com ISBN: 033041836X ...

absurd_luck 21.05.2006 (23.05.2006) · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...which you must read - Lucky is a harrowing, heart-wrenching book about the worst possible thing that can happen to a woman. Alice Sebold tells the raw story of her rape ordeal and her subsequent struggle for recovery with an honesty and warmth which is compelling. I have to be honest, when I first started reading this book it is a bit disturbing reading about someone's rape, especially the author but then you think that, that person must be so brave ...
...Alice Sebold for that. Lucky reads almost like a novel itself at times, with gripping moments of suspense, particularly during the court trial scenes. Alice Sebold was the innocent victim of an unforgivable crime - but she doesn't ask for our sympathy or pity in these beautifully written pages. She earns our respect and admiration for the courageous way she tells how the traumatic events changed and shaped her life; how the naive college student ...

sweetpea_sweetpea 03.06.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

I bought "Lucky" and "Lovely Bones" as a special offer from a book club. Luckily, "Lucky" was not the one I read first - or I might never have read it! Having read "Lovely Bones" I had, like another reviewer, decided I liked the author's style and way of writing. I raced through that one. Probably I should not have started reading "Lucky" on the night bus after missing my last tube after a works Christmas "do"!! The first few pages, graphically detailing ...
...furtively at every male on the bus! I felt a bit uneasy that they might see me reading it and somehow it might give them nasty ideas! The rape itself was handled very well - gruesome but all the little details like the trash on the ground and wanting to put her bra back on, one might think very plausible - it certainly felt real - and in "real-time" too. The minutes that the rape took to read about, seemed to equate with the time you would imagine ...

LouiseK 30.01.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

I read this book after reading Alice Seabold fiction book 'The Lovely Bones'. I expected exactly what I got - a brutally honest and heart wrenching book. Alice was horifically raped as an 18 year old whilst walking through her College campus. She begins the book with the attack and guides us though her reactions, innermost feelings, her familys reactions and how much she had to fight to see justice done and to feel 'normal' again. It is quite ...
...experienced this painful ordeal - such painful honesty is rare in other fiction books. This IS a harrowing story yet despite her ordeal, Alice has emerged stronger than ever. I flet humbled at her allowing us to read her story. I cannot reccomend this book enough. It is availble in most books stores. I purchased mine from Amazon when it was first released. Asda are currently selling this book for around £3.84. **Just to let you know this was one ...

jayandfoo 07.03.2005 (16.04.2005) · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

...wonder if Lucky would be how I described the events, the experiences, but every thing is relative I suppose, as in the same place where she was raped a little girl was killed and so perhaps she is lucky. ! I would just recommend that you all read it. ...

Blank 30.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold

read this book after reading The Lovely Bones, also written by Alice Sebold. The author gives her own account of being raped as a college-student and how it affects her, her relationships with friends, family and boyfriends, and also how her ordeal affected them. Right from the beginning of the book, you are drawn into her story, and the detail she goes into is extremely intimate and personal. Rape is not a particularly cheerful topic, but the empathy ...

arcvoyd 18.12.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Lucky - Alice Sebold