“My name is Salmon, like the fish, first name, Susie,” not only is the starting of this book smart, it’s also touching, showing the innocent face of a girl who’s developing in her teenage years. The Lovely Bones is a story about a girl who in the year 1973 is raped and brutally murdered while taking a shortcut home. This book not only talks about the murder of Susie Salmon but also about everything that came after her unsolved murder. Susie narrates the book after her death from a place in the afterlife. There Susie watches over her killer, Mr. Harvey, who was also her next door neighbor. Ruth is a living friend Susie makes after her death, she is able to communicate with Ruth on Earth in ways she does not understand, and during the novels these two girls help each other and discover they are very much alike, but never created a profound friendship because of the circumstances when Susie was on Earth.
As things start to unravel and rumors are spread about Susie’s disappearance, Ray Singh is the first suspect; he was a young boy who was in love with Susie. Jack, Susie’s father feels impotent, his daughter is gone, he wasn’t able to save her, and her murderer is still out there somewhere. Soon Jack starts to have suspicions that Mr. Harvey was the murderer, but because of the lack of evidence, nothing can be done. Abigail, Susie’s sister starts to uncover small clues and allies with her father in the belief that Mr. Harvey killed Susie. As the novel continues, there is also a change, a sense of maturity in Susie.
One of the influences for Alice Sebold in this novel was that she was also raped. It happened in her college years and going through those moments was a great trauma to her, the way she was able to cope and feel relief was through writing.
It is also a major motion picture. I personally found the movie to be a great adaption but in the end it is up to you to decide it’s ranking.
My experience with this book is something that I would not take back. This book portrayed the love a father can have toward a daughter and how the loss of a loved person can break a family part but also unite them in unexpected ways. How love is about everything of that person, about loving the person because of the pain they cause to you, and of the smile they grant you. It also taught me to believe your instincts, to believe in yourself, to believe in what you feel. That there is something beyond death, beyond the tragedy of it, behind the tears, there’s hope, that one day things will get better. That when people leave they don’t leave fingerprints or DNA but they do leave us, we are their lovely bones.
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