The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
Published by Little Brown and Company
Publication Date July 3, 2002
Source: Bought
Genres: General Fiction
Goodreads

The spirit of fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon describes her murder, her surprise at her new home in heaven, and her witness to her family's grief, efforts to find the killer, and attempts to come to terms with what has happened.

First Impressions

I actually read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold several years ago.  At first, I was very hesitant because of the subject matter.  Do I really want to read about a 14-year-old getting raped and murdered?  I was only a few years older than Susie  at the time.  I ended  up loving it.  The thing I was most worried about was the explicit detail of the crime.  Alice Sebold gave the reader enough information to get a good picture of the act and left the more gruesome parts to your imagination.  The focus of the book was solving the crime and how her family and friends coped with their grief.

Impressions While Reading

In Susie’s Heaven they play a game called “the perfect murder” very similar to the board game “Clue”  {Professor Plum, in the study, with the revolver}.  Susie always chooses the icicle as her weapon of choice because it melts away.  This is ironic and most probably intentional because both Susie’s body and her killer dissolve leaving only a small puddle of evidence behind.

The Lovely Bones reflects on almost ten years after the murder with, both the dead and undead dealing with this transition they have been given.

Final Impressions

Because of the book’s longevity I grew a strong attachment to the characters.  I felt for those impacted by Susie’s death.  It was brillant work by Alice Sebold.  The Lovely Bones is truly a heart wrenching, moving book, but in the end proves that life does go on.