Book Review

The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

Faith Burila
Humanities ?

          The Lovely Bones is truly a touching story involving the relationship of love between friends and family, and in the bigger picture, teaching acceptance to all the characters. The story starts off with young Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl, getting raped and murdered by her neighbor who is known as “Mr. Harvey”.  The tragedy greatly affected both her family and friends. Susie enters her heaven, where from there she watches the ongoing life of the ones she loves, as well as her murderer. Susie’s family refuses to accept that she has been killed, until the day where their neighbor’s dog finds the elbow of Susie.

         Throughout the book Susie told the life of her family, friends, and so on from her heaven. I found that very interesting because it’s cool to see a perspective of the dead watching the living, and seeing Susie’s thoughts of what was going on down on Earth. It was very depressing for me to read about Susie’s sadness and anger about being murdered, and during every chapter I read it felt as if I were Susie herself. I could feel the feelings she had because the author described everything so vividly. I could picture each moment that Susie experienced during the story. I think what also helped, but yet threw me off was knowing what happened in the movie, and comparing it to the book.

         Many things that occurred in the movie, such as the plot, were quite different than the story line in the book. I found the plot for the book very creative and entertaining! It was clear and very detailed, and I always wanted to know what was next after finishing a chapter. I watched the movie before reading the book, so knowing some of the events that took place in The Lovely Bones made it a little difficult to keep up / understand exactly what was going on. I definitely liked this book though, though it’s a little disturbing to know a man like Mr. Harvey (a neighbor) raped a 14-year-old girl, and this was one of many kills he had done. I got goosebumps reading it because problems like these happen very often, and I’m around that age so I sometimes imagine if I were in Susie’s case.

         Other than a slight disturbance you might get while reading, the book was very touching and showed the relationships between Susie and her Family. I could really feel the pain that her mother, father, sister and brother had, and saw how heartbroken they were when Susie was murdered. I understand that it must be hard to lose someone who is a really important part of your life, and that it’s not easy to let go. This book gently progressed to show the acceptance her family as well as her friends, had about her murder. This book also showed and represented love, mostly between Susie and her Dad. Jack Salmon, her father, had a gut feeling of who his little girl’s murderer was. Everyone failed to believe him, except Lindsey, who is Susie’s little sister. Jack constantly told people that George Harvey killed Susie, and it got to the point of where everyone thought he was crazy, which was unfortunate. During the phone calls Jack would make to the police, Abigail, Susie’s mother slowly developed feelings she shouldn’t of felt, towards Len, who is the detective of Susie’s case. She later had an affair with him, later causing her to leave Jack and her children. This really shocked me and in my opinion broke Susie’s heart, as she saw everything from heaven. The book had many different things it represented, but the author did a great job with all the themes!

         At the end of the book, Susie let go, and accepted that she could not live her life on Earth, but she knew the love from her family and friends would never go away. The story was deep and touching, and overall great! I would definitely recommend reading this book if you like suspenseful, yet heart-touching stories!