The Lovely Bones

            I’m reading the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold which is about a girl who narratives from her “heaven” because she was raped and killed by her “odd” neighbor Mr. Harvey. She watches over her broken family, and friends try to piece together their lives and solve her murder. I think it’s brilliant that Alice Sebold chooses to use Susie as the narrator, it could’ve been her sister or her friends but Sebold chooses Susie, I also think that each character is so relatable and so real that it makes a situation that may seem foreign to a lot of people more realistic.

            I think it’s vital that this story is told from Susie’s perspective. Susie’s life was stolen from her, she struggles everyday in what she thinks is her “heaven” but she’s dead, her story has stopped but the ones on Earth, the ones who she left behind, are broken, confused, and raw. Since Susie’s the narrator you get to see everyone of their stories, that her father suspects the right man and is punishing himself and its driving him to a point of insanity, how her mother is drifting away from her husband and her remaining children, how her sister can’t stand the looks at school and can’t stand the fact that her father is in so much pain. Without Susie the dead 14-year-old girl, not all of these stories would be brought to light.  

I also feel that in the book The Lovely Bones each story is so real, maybe it’s not something that we can all relate to but I think in each character one could find themselves within that character. I think a lot of kids can relate to Susie or Lindsey, her sister. There are always things we can’t control in our lives, Lindsey can’t control her sister’s death and she can’t control the way people act around her and she tries hard to ignore it, because I think that when something is too painful we as people just don’t want to face it and I think that is definitely something that we can relate to. I think kids can also relate to Susie because sometimes when your parents are hurting you don’t know what to do, they’re the ones that are always comforting you and giving you advice that when its time to return the favor you just can’t, and Susie can’t. She can’t communicate with anyone especially her family, the ones she has to communicate most with, but I think that’s just a metaphor for what I said earlier.

Things happen. Terrible, horrific things happen in this world. Murders, rapes, wars, they all happen, and the consequences are always severe. They leave people scared, and broken, shattered, like the characters in The Lovely Bones . But I think what hurts the most are the questions that come after. What happened? Why me? Why wasn’t I there? Why couldn’t I stop it? Why couldn’t I help? These are all question that Susie’s family and families around the world are asking when the unthinkable happens. Its not fair, if the world has taken something from you, you should be able to just have those answers but the world doesn’t work like that you have to go out and find them yourself. In The Lovely Bones that’s the only thing Susie’s family can do, and the fact the Susie is telling the story helps you see the ways they do.