The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones
By Alice Sebold

Murder mysteries, personally my favorite type of mysteries; but it is usually hard to find a really good one. Almost all murder mysteries have similar plots: someone dies and we follow either a cop, a close family member, or some random person who pops into the story, through a long adventure seeking justice. But Alice Sebold takes murder mysteries to a whole new level. We no longer see the aftereffects of a murder through the family’s eyes (or through the cop’s eyes) but rather through the victim’s eyes.

The book contains such an outrageous and captivating beginning that captures a reader’s attention. We follow a young girl named Susie Salmon. At the age of fourteen she is just experiencing glimpses of responsibility, maturity, even love, but on December 6, 1973 it is all taken away. As Susie is leaving school realizing how late it is she decides to take a shortcut through the cornfield. When she is closer to home she bumps into her neighbor, George Harvey; he tells her to follow him for he has built something fascinating that he would like to show her. At first Susie doesn’t know what it is, but when Mr. Harvey tells her to look harder she realizes he build a hut in the ground that is so breathtakingly hidden. He welcomes her to enter, through she refuses him at first she eventually enters the fascinating hut – what a terrible mistake. In minutes Mr. Harvey rapes and kills Susie Salmon.

Susie enters her heaven, in which in this book is a perfect little world of your own with anything you desire, but all Susie seems to do is watch over her family on Earth. At first her parents, Jack and Abigail Salmon, deny that their daughter is dead, until officer Len Fenerman finds and shows them Susie’s hat that is covered in saliva (what Mr. Harvey used to cover her mouth),implying she was dead. Later, they found her elbow. Through Mr. Harvey foolishly left the hat and elbow out in the open, he cleverly disposed the rest of the body by dumping it into a sinkhole. 

As days pass by, a depressed Jack seems to want nothing but justice for his little girl. He then starts to notice how strange his neighbor, George Harvey, is; he decides to talk to him, to see who this man is. When he spoke to the odd man his fatherly instincts told him Mr. Harvey is the murderer. Once knowing what he was sure of, he called officer Len, but as much as Len tried to find evidence, there was absolutely none that indicated Mr. Harvey was the murderer. The only suspect they had was Ray Singh, a fellow classmate of Susie. Ray had a schoolboy crush on Susie and wrote her a love note, later found unread in her textbook, but since he was with his father in a conference during the murder, he was checked off the list. 

From what Susie sees in heaven, her death has caused nothing but trouble to her loved ones. Her father is depressed and going crazy trying to find evidence against George Harvey. Her mother is miserable feeling like an empty mom wanting to escape from her sad reality through a romantic affair with Officer Len. Not only does she affect the relationship between her parents but also the lives of her siblings. Lindsey, Susie’s younger sister, is constantly being told that she looks like Susie, causing a great sadness in everyone. Because of all the chaos Susie’s death is causing in the relationship of her parents, Buckley, Susie’s 5 year old brother, isn’t getting the attention a little boy should. The boy she likes, Ray, is being wrongfully accused of being her murderer. Even people Susie barely spoke to are being affected, like Ruth. When Susie took spirit form and was heading towards heaven she appeared to Ruth; after Susie’s death, Ruth still feels her presence and often writes poems about her. Ruth is already a strange person to everyone – even her parents – and when she starts to write poems about the dead (a.k.a Susie) people find her more weird. Everyone on Earth is falling apart and all Susie can do is sit there and watch. 

This is such an interesting story because we see it through a dead person’s point of view. I think it was a big risk writing it from a dead person’s shoes because no one really knows how they feel and it’s impossible ask them how. It is also is a challenge to keep the story entertaining when the reader already knows who the murder is. I believe Alice Sebold did an outstanding job! I also think it such an engaging story due to the fact that Alice gives a realistic side oh how crazy people get as side effects of depression from losing a loved one. However, there are some unrealistic events in the story which keeps it entertaining. The only thing I can criticize is that I felt the story dragged a little in some points that I didn’t feel like continuing, but overall it’s a great read.   

My Rating:

                                                                                                ~A.BW