I read the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It was written in 2002 and published by Little Brown and Company. It is classified in the fantasy genre. The Lovely Bones has a deeper message within the words that warms and chills the heart. The authors writing is a work of art that makes you feel like a character in the book.

The Lovely Bones starts with the murder of Susie Salmon. While walking home from school she is confronted by one of her neighbors Mr. Harvey. He asks Susie if she would like to come and see something he built in his backyard. Susie agreed and went with Mr. Harvey. In his yard was an underground room that even had a chimney. Mr. Harvey asked Susie if she would like something to drink; she agreed and was handed a can of Coke. As Susie was trying to leave Mr. Harvey threw her to the ground shoving her hat in her mouth so she could not be heard. He then raped her and cut her up so there was nothing left but her bones. He put the bones in a sack and drove away to a sink hole, where he disposed of Susie’s remains. Susie’s parents became concerned of her safety; she was several hours late therefore they called the police. Detective Len was the first one to show up at their house. They searched the cornfield where Susie would walk through on her way home from school. A neighbor’s dog found an elbow that had dropped out of the sack because Mr. Harvey was in such a hurry. They also found a history book that had a love letter in it from a boy at school. He became the first suspect. The detectives questioned him, but he had an alibi that was confirmed by a witness. They later found Susie’s hat and clarified that her salvia was on the hat. As the investigation went on Susie was watching her family from “her heaven”. Seeing her family was hard but the worse was seeing Mr. Harvey get away with her murder. Besides Susie’s mom and dad she had a sister Lindsey and a brother Buckley. Lindsey became known as the girl whose sister was murdered. As for Buckley he was only four and did not understand why his sister was gone. Many years passed with no signs or leads on the case. Not only did the case turn cold, the hearts of the Salmons did as well. Mrs. Salmon became so upset she had an affair with Len the detective. She soon left to live in California in order to start over. Mr. Harvey had moved to Virginia from Pennsylvania. There he killed another girl and buried her bones along with the bracelet of Susie. Knowing that these two murders were connected led the authorities to suspect and later confirming that it was Mr. Harvey. However they were unaware of his whereabouts and never were able to catch him. Shortly after this happened Mr. Salmon had a heart attack and was hospitalized. They contacted Mrs. Salmon and she immediately came back to Pennsylvania. Having her there caused some tension, but is just what this family needed to keep from falling apart.

In the book The Lovely Bones the author did a nice job of writing a well structured book that was entertaining and challenging. I think she achieved her purpose of writing a quality book. However, parts of the book were extremely strange and quite “out there”. It seemed to me that the author never really organized her thought process. The story plot was scattered, and all over the place never really settling on one idea. For me this made the story more difficult to comprehend what was happening at all times. Another thing that bothered me is how descriptive and detailed the author was. Certain parts were a little too nasty and gory for me to handle I felt like needed to stop reading and watch Barney or something happy to get the picture out of my head. I do admit however there were times that her excessive descriptiveness was quite helpful. For example “She was wearing her winery outfit: a pair of faded but clean jeans and a pale orange T-shirt with KRUSOE WINERY embroidered on the pocket. Her skin was darker now, which made her blue eyes seem bluer in contrast, and she had taken to wearing her hair in a loose ponytail at the base of her neck” The way she described her made me see even more of what the character’s personality is like than what the author tells you. I also like that the book is not that predictable, I could never really guess the exact outcome. This caused a lot of suspense and made me want to read more. Overall, I thought the book was mediocre. It was quite interesting and unusual but it just was not my cup of tea. I would recommend this book because the author has wonderful writing skills and the book is enjoyable. However I would not recommend this book to someone who has recently lost a loved one or who is quite sensitive to that subject matter.

To conclude, I enjoyed reading The Lovely Bones it was exciting and kept me on my toes at all times. This book taught me that redemption doesn’t make pain go away and that love is the only way to always have happiness.