Susie's Heaven

Writing Style

             Alice Sebold the author of The Lovely Bones. This novel has some different writing techniques. One being that the main character is dead. And since Susie is 14 she is not formal. The point of view is more of a conversation between her and you. Susie is omnipresent and really guides the reader from the past (her murder) to the present (when she catches us up on her present day family) 

Critical Review

            The Lovely Bones is not a book for everyone. This book is heart wrenching and spine tingling. This book is meant for mature readers and all others wouldn’t get it. The first event in the book was Susie Salmon’s murder. Following that was how her family coped and the cops solved the murder.

            This is one book that grabs your attention with the first sentence, “My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name: Susie. I was 14 years old when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. I was here for a moment, then I was gone.” With the character being a 14-year-old who gets raped and murdered, you sympathize as she continues to tell the story from her point of view.

            When you make a bond with a character, whether it be in a book, show, etc. It makes the book more interesting. You don’t want to put down the book because you want to keep reading so you know what happens to the characters. This is the type of book that once you start reading you can’t stop. But, you don’t want it to end.

            While reading this you get pulled into this world where you know the Salmon family. You really care for the characters and those are the best type of books. Being pulled into a different world is the point of reading, and Alice Sebold nailed that when writing this. 

Helpful Links

One link I found to be helpful was the trailer for the movie
Click Here To Watch

Another helpful link is to a website that has a summary of the book and how it was written
Click Here

And lastly is another book review:
 Review

Characters Changing

Main characters can change over the course of a novel and this book is a prime example of that.  

Pain and going through something traumatic changes people a lot. I am not a mother but I know there would be nothing more painful or traumatizing then knowing my child was abducted, raped and then murdered. Abigail Salmon was a great mother and a loving wife. Once everything happened with Susie, she left. She said herself that she couldn’t have ever left her family behind like that before but that she needed to heal.

Lindsey Salmon is another example. Losing an older sister would hurt more than imaginable. Lindsey was a runner and a straight a student. After the death of her sister she found herself breaking into houses, skipping class and run meetings.

The main character, and who’s point of view that the book is told from was Susie Salmon. For obvious reasons Susie changed the most. She was your normal 14-year-old. Crushing on a boy, trying to do well in school, etc. Then, she was murdered. As she continued to tell the story from her point of view, she was watching everyone from Heaven. She changed because she would never be the same again. Even if she did live she went through something traumatic that would change anyone. 

Book Cover

"The Lovely Bones." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 10 June 2016.

Theme

            One theme in this book was that family really is everything. When something tragic happens, like Susie’s abduction, family is always there. For the Salmon family, they were each other’s rocks. After Abigail, Susie’s mother, leaves the rest of the family becomes closer than ever. Lindsey and Jack have a more father-daughterly bond than they ever had before.

            For George Harvey, he doesn’t have that family connection with anyone. Not that not having a family will make you rape and kill young women. But maybe Harvey always longed for that family connection, or a wife of his own so he needed someone.

            Everybody needs somebody, and this book is a great example of that for the reason that without each other or some type of family support, nobody could’ve healed or grieved properly. Having a tight bond with someone, like a father or sibling, is something major for someone healing from something so traumatic. When Abigail left she did it because she didn’t know how to handle what had happened to her daughter. It didn’t take her long to come back, knowing her kids needed a mother and she needed her kids.