The Lovely bones (Grace Szydziak)

Title: The Lovely Bones
Author: Alice Seabold
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 328
I decided to read this book because a lot of my friends read it and told me it was really good, so I figured I would give it a shot.
Susie Salmon, a 14 year old girl, who gets rapes and murdered by her neighbor George Harvey. Susie tells the story from heaven for 8 years after her death. She watched her family go through the pain of losing her and watches her family being destroyed. Susie gets frustrated watching her father as he suspects the neighbor of the murder but cannot prove it. Her mother leaves her family and wishes she had a different life, her sister struggles at school and Susie’s brother talks to her all the time. As Susie watches over her family, one day her father becomes ill, which brings her mother back. She feels better that her family is all together again. Not till then does Susie feel as though she can move on. Although her murder was never solved, her family and friends always suspected her neighbor, George Harvey, but he is now nowhere to be found.
The audience of this book would be young adults because of the violent rape and murder of a young girl. The writing style is somewhat personal from the author’s own experience. The author was raped when she was in college so she could relate and explain how it feels.
“Susie! Susie!” I heard my mother calling. “Dinner is read.” He was inside me. He was grunting. “We’re having string beans and lamb.” I was the mortar, he was the pestle. “Your brother has the new finger painting, and I made apple crumb cake.” This struck me because I can’t even imagine being raped as I can hear my mother calling me for dinner, not knowing that it would be the last time I would ever hear her voice.
Already my private territory had become a no man’s land, in the middle of our house. My mother had no touched it. My bed was still un made from the hurried morning of my death. My flowered hippo lay among the sheets and pillows, and so did an outfit I’d discarded before I chose the yellow bell bottoms. This struck me because it’s really sad to think that no one in her family could go into her room after her death. It’s sad not knowing that was the last morning she was ever going to get up again.
“Susie is dead,” he said now, unable to make it fit in the rules of any game. “Do you know what that means?” Buckley reached over his hand and covered the shoe, he looked up to see if his answer was right. “You won’t see Susie anymore, honey. None of us will.” My father cried. Buckley looked up into the eyes of our father and did not fully understand. This strikes me because Buckley is Susie’s little brother, and he is only four. He doesn’t understand why he won’t see Susie anymore, and when he grows up, he will probably never remember her.
I believe the primary theme of this book is how a family copes with the murder of their child.
The family starts to fall apart, and the mother leaves home because she cannot handle it, and ends up having an affair with someone else.
At the end of the book, after 8 years of struggles, the family comes together again.
I would rate this book an A just because the author used personal experience, so I feel as though I could really feel what she was going through. Her feelings made it very sad with a lot of strong emotions. It also made me feel as though Susie was okay in heaven, and that she had accepted the fact of what had happened. I felt as though Susie was just hoping the best for her family and that they could make it through knowing in some way that she was okay.