THE LOVELY BONES


The Lovely Bones is an inspirational book about love, family, and a murder gone foul. It shows the trials and tribulations that the Salmon family has to go through with their loss of their oldest daughter. When Susie is in her heaven she try’s to help her family realize who murdered her. The family is so heartbroken with the loss of their daughter, and sister. Also the family does not realize that the person that murdered Susie is living right next to them. It shows that you can be right about your gut feeling when it comes to a murder of a family member.

Alice Sebold’s books really portray her life in a weird way, because when she was a freshman in college she was raped. The book Lucky shows that she is lucky to be alive after she was raped. It can be a scary thing to be raped at such a young age or at anytime. In the book The Lovely Bones it shows that her two books are both about rapes. When you have a terrible memory that can be turned into an award winning book, then you can use the story of a raped person. It also took Alice many years to write Lucky, probably because she did not want to remember the rape. Susie in The Lovely Bones is just like Alice, they were both raped at a very young age. But Susie was not a freshman in college she was only in eighth grade. It shows that at any age rape can affect you forever.

Susie was a very lively person before she died, and that just shocked the family when they lost someone that love. Portraying in this book to Alice Sebold’s life is very interesting because just not long before she was raped, a girl was raped and murdered in the same place where she was raped. When Susie was being raped Mr. Harvey said to her “Tell me you love me,” he said” (15). Most people that are doing the raping usually don’t really talk to the person that they are raping. It is very rare that you know the person that raped you, and they don’t normally know who you are too. Alice Sebold is trying to tell every young person to watch where they are going and who is around them at all times.

The family is in grief from the death of Susie, but the only person that does not show that she is missing her older sister, is Lindsey. But when she is not around her family, one of Susie’s old friends asked Lindsey if she misses her older sister she says “More than anyone will ever know” (121). It shows that people can show grief in different ways. Many people questioned if Lindsey is sad or happy about Susie’s death, but she does not want everyone to feel sorry for her because her sister is dead. The day after they found out that Susie would be never be back Lindsey went to school and the principal asked her if she was ok and she said “I’m late for first period…” (33), it showed that she did not want to talk about her sister’s death all the time at school even when she’s hearing it all the time at home.

Many people are dealing with death everyday, but not everyone has experienced death of a family member that has been raped and then killed. But the Salmon family has to deal with the death of their oldest daughter and the murderer is living right next to them and they don’t even know it. But every time that they get close to knowing who Susie’s killer is, but the police does not believe them. Susie is in heaven and she is trying to help her family realize that her killer is Mr. Harvey. It shows that everyone is a victim of the murder of Susie.

This is an amazing book to read that keeps you on the edge of your seat all the time. You can get into what she is talking about in the book. From the beginning to the end of the book you keep thinking when the family will finally realize who did his to there beloved Susie. She was taken from them at such a young age before she got to really live her life. I would recommend this book to anyone that is looking for a good book that they just want to curl up in their chair and keep reading, this is the right book for them. You can put yourself into Susie’s shoes, and feel what she is feeling when she was murdered and when she is in heaven. It makes you realize that you need to be grateful for everyday you have and don’t take things for granted in your life. Things can change in a minute. Live life to the fullest everyday because you never know what will happen to you the next day and the people in your life you will miss. This was a very amazing book to read and enjoy.