The Lovely Bones

Written by Alice Sebold and made into a fantastic film directed by Peter Jackson and starring Mark Wahlberg Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci, Saoirse Ronan, and Susan Sarandon, The Lovely Bones is a beautiful story about moving on after great loss. 

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. 

From Heaven, Susie watches her suburban family, devastated by her death and isolated from one another as they each try to cope with their grief and loss alone. As the years pass, Susie watches her friends and family grow up, fall in love, and do all the things that she never had the chance to do. But life is not quite through with Susie just yet. 

Many people who have seen the film, but have not read the book, seem to think that it’s a story of revenge with the good catching the bad and bringing them to justice. But it isn’t. It is simply about moving on after suffering from a great loss and it’s this that makes it such a sad and tragically beautiful story because the only closure that occurs is on an emotional and spiritual level. 

The book is written in the first person register, from the perspective of the central character: Susie Salmon. We see only what she sees, which makes the journey all the more meaningful because we notice the tiny changes in each of the characters that go unnoticed by the other characters of the story. 

The critical drama takes place at the very beginning of the book, which is a clever plot device because it grabs the reader straight away and holds their attention. The only downside to this, though, is that there are some points during the grieving period of the characters where the story begins to grow a little mundane and it’s almost very tempting to just put the book down and lose interest. However, all good readers and book-lovers persevere and it is they who reap the rewards. The book itself is very easy to read and holds the reader’s attention for the most part. 

Filled with sinister drama, murder, loss, despair, and emotional closure, The Lovely Bones is a beautiful story about the emotional journey that takes place after suffering from a great loss. Simply moving on. A truly lovely book.