I’m loving this book. There are three nested stories, each within the other, and now that I’ve gotten the hang of the pattern, I want to know what happens in each story. The deeper I get into it, the more enthralling it becomes. However, it is long and dense. I’m halfway through now after having read it in earnest for several weeks now. Hope to finish it in two more weeks.

I started this book to fill the mental downtime between work sessions, and it overtook my world. I finished all 300+ pages in essentially three days. I was supposed to set up the brand new computer my brother made for me for Christmas this weekend as well as the iPod I got my husband; do all kinds of 2006 financial paper processing; get tax paperwork ready. Guess what – none of it got done because this book was such a page turner. I actually don’t recommend it if you have something pressing to get done, b/c you may find it difficult given the pull of this book. :-)

I wanted to know what happened to the protagonist, Susie after her death, if she would ever be free of her earthly burdens, what became of her killer, how her family would ultimately take it, what her friend Ruth would see, whether her high school love Ray would get over her, whether her mother could get over herself enough to put the family first again, whether the investigator Len would ever get off his ass and catch the killer… I wanted to know what lessons Sebold was telling us.