Book Blog: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

the lovely bones!
Originally uploaded by Rakka

Submitted by Kelly Kisch

At first, the novel "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold seems like an
extremely sad story. It centers on the death of Susie Salmon, a
fourteen year old girl living in the suburbs of Pennsylvania in the
1970’s and opens with her murder.

Brutally rapped and killed by a neighbor, Susie is dismembered and her body parts are scattered throughout the surrounding corn fields; however, there is never enough evidence to convict her neighbor, George Harvey, of her murder.

What makes this book interesting is that Susie is narrating the story from her new home in heaven. She spends most of her time watching her family and friends very closely, but sometimes she takes time out of the story to describe what heaven is
like. In the book, heaven is different for everybody; for Susie, in heaven, she lives close to a high school. She has a swing set outside and every once in a while stray dogs wander in and out of her yard. Her heaven happens to overlap with the heaven of a girl named Holly, who Susie becomes close to in heaven.

From Heaven, Susie watches her family try to cope with her death, and sees despicable things done out of desperation, beautiful
moments, and the ugly reality of a family barricaded from each
other. She watches the lives of those she loves unravel, all the time
wishing she could back to them on earth. More than anything, Susie longs for a chance to grow into a young woman.

The story is sad and heart wrenching at its core, but in the end it has beautiful messages about life and death and turns out to be a great book.