The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold response

The Lovely Bones focuses around Susie Salmon, and her life in her
heaven after she passes away during an ugly rape incident that
changes many lives.

I really like the way The Lovely Bones is written. It’s Susie’s view
on the earth, and her life in heaven. She watches in on everyone’s
life, and with her not being able to truly interact with her friends
and family on earth, it’s more of a reflection of her life so far. I
found that it was a open writing style, maybe because heaven is a
very open subject to begin with. For example, she observes Mr.
Harvey, her killer through his sad and lonely life. In a way, she is
still as much on earth as she was before, but the earthlings have to
fully believe in her current state to observe her, and it takes a
while until the earthlings fully believe that harsh reality.

I think that the main theme of the book is letting go. It’s a very
common concept, which is easy to find commonplace examples for. I
think The Lovely Bones finds a unique way of describing it. As
expected, when the physical entity of Susie ceases to exist, a switch
in the minds of Susie’s family turns off, creating a quick spiraling
trip downwards for them. Everyone tries to hide their deeper feelings
on the matter, thus creating a black hole sucking their souls up.
This makes them all hit rock bottom, and starts the process of
healing, and a metaphor I thought of for this was a bud.

When Susie dies, the souls of her family on earth quickly grow a bud.
This bud only opens into a full fledged flower when the healing
process is more or less complete. It takes a long time, but it does
happen. Eventually, Susie’s parents break up and more or less live
life for a few years sort of ignoring Susie’s death, with her dad
being caught up and angry about not finding the killer, and her mom
more or less ignoring it. They’re both not really thinking about
Susie, and how she can exist while physically dead, even after her
dad sees a ghostly image of her.

One of the main turning points in the healing process was when
Susie’s dad has a heart attack. Physical tradgedies like this often
tend to bring people together and unite them (tsunami, etc.). This
happens with Susie’s family, and after being apart for quite a while,
her parents really grieve for Susie, and reflect on her life a bit.
So after letting the bud of healing get ready for blossoming while
being away from eachother for a while, the bud is almost ready to
bloom. The unity of the family, and the sort of community that occurs
with Susie’s mom and dad back together and Lindsey’s boyfriend, they
all are able to fully move forward, finding their meaning on earth
again. At the same time in heaven, Susie is also able to move forward
and her life shifts from the main aspect being the observation of
earth to her focus being the happenings in her heaven.

In a way, not having Mr. Harvey caught and punished brought around a
fuller healing process for the family, letting time heal the wounds
instead of the killer being brought to “justice”.

Another aspect of the book that was brought to my attention was the
suburban setting of it. I have somewhat of a prejudice towards
suburbia and it’s people, with the richness and sameness of all the
houses etc at the time of finishing the book. I was also volunteering
with a summer camp at Fort Whyte, which mostly deals with suburban
children at the time of finishing the book. I’ve come to not liking
this prejudice that I have, with my mom saying that they’re still as
human as us urbanites are, and I think the prejudice is becoming less
prominent in my mind, maybe because of this book showing how human
they are (Susie lived in suburbia). The prejudice is towards the
people that I don’t really know, just like I wouldn’t have known
Susie’s family if I had seen them. Minds play silly tricks on us
anyways.

One final reflection on the book I’d like to share is how it made me
feel. You’d think it’d be kinda freaky, a girl in heaven reflecting
on her lonely family. I was scared at the beginning with her murder,
but then it just kind of got to a normal feeling. I felt interested
in it, and it didn’t really provoke any real strong emotions, maybe
because Susie was observing everything, you weren’t seeing everything
first hand.

The Lovely Bones opened my mind up a bit, are people really watching
us from heaven? It’d be neat to find out how Alice Sebold came up
with this idea. It’s a really interesting concept. Overall, I’d
really recommend this book, it has a slower pace to it, but
completely worthwhile.