First Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Little, Brown and Company, 2002 Genre: Fiction


The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is about a 14-year-old girl named Susie Salmon, who is raped and murdered by her neighbor, George Harvey, while taking a shortcut on her walk home from school. The book is told by Susie, from “her heaven”, where she watches her family and friends suffer from her disappearance and her killer try to cover his tracks. The book takes place in Susie’s hometown, Norristown, Pennsylvania, where her parents struggle to maintain their relationship, her sister becomes a woman, and Mr. Harvey live his life like nothing happened.

“Mesmerizing….Sebold deals with almost unthinkable subjects with humor and intelligence and a kind of mysterious grace,” reads the book jacket. (Monica Wood, San Francisco Chronicle)

The Lovely Bones is a compelling story that is told in the eyes of a 14-year-old who is watching Earth from heaven. She tells us everything she witnesses, and gives her opinions and ideas about people, conflicts, and other crucial events that are happening in her loved ones lives down on Earth, all that are the result of her sudden disappearance. Susie’s friendly, humorous personality makes situations that would normally be disturbing and unreadable suspenseful and fascinating.

The Lovely Bones has quite a similar effect on the reader as A Child Called It by David Pelzer. The authors take on horrifying conflicts, but somehow give them charm, and make them very attention-grabbing. The stories are both told from the eyes of the main characters, so their views, details, and comments on events in the story give the books life.

“When my father’s car pulled into the drive, I was beginning to wonder if this had been what I’d been waiting for, for my family to come home, not to me anymore but to one another with me gone. In the afternoon light my father looked smaller somehow, thinner, but his eyes looked grateful in a way they had not in years” (316)

I really enjoyed this novel by Sebold. I am often not a huge fan of reading, and I only read when I have to for school, but that was not true for this book. I really enjoyed this book. I liked reading it in my spare time, because the author made the plot very suspenseful and exciting, and included vivid details throughout the book. This book gave me a deeper understanding of how tragedies like murders affect whole communities, and break relationships, friendships, and other things that were previously so strong. It made me grateful for everything I have, and that I have not gone through heartbreak like the one in this book. I enjoyed how the author was not timid at all throughout the book, giving amazing details, realistic dialogue, and a very compelling story.