On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973,14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into amakeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped andmurdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew asher neighbor, Mr. Harvey.
Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The LovelyBones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday"and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving familyand friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detectiveworking on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or herown version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields andlandscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplestdreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to goinside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch ourbacksides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen andGlamour and Vogue."
The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-agestory. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging tothe lost world of the living, following her family's dramas overthe years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife. Her familydisintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to findher killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckleyattempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and heryounger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of herteenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun.Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susierecalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--abeautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, TheLovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning thatultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even morepowerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates abig finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well foreveryone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven isindeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad ThomasParsons
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