The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

I’ve been reading this summer, but not as much as I had planned on. In a way I’m disappointed about that, but in another way I’ve been doing so much else that I’ve been having a great time and can’t complain. Early in the summer I read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

I remember back to high school when a friend of mine recommended this book to me. I was interested but just didn’t get to it until now. Doesn’t that just go to show that timing is everything! Not everything needs to be tackled right away.

The Lovely Bones was both captivating and slightly disturbing. It drew me in right away with the first two sentences, “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” The chapter goes on to describe Susie’s ordeal from her point of view up in heaven. The rest of the story with the family’s devastation and the investigation into the culprit is also narrated by a frustrated Susie who can see all but do nothing from Heaven.

Alice Sebold took some risks in writing this book, and they paid off. Ethically, it can be difficult to write about the murder of a young girl. Although for the most part I would say this book is for ages 13+, I can see a lot of parents not wanting their children to read it because of the scary reality of the murder. It’s not described in explicit detail, but it’s detailed enough. If I read this book when I was 13 I probably would have been scared to be alone for a while.

Read this book for the reality of it, the suspense throughout the story, and the ending.