The Lovely Bones- Samantha Cowan

             I read the book “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold. The story is told by Susie Salmon, who is a fourteen-year-old girl who has been raped and killed by her serial killer neighbor George Harvey. She lives in Pennsylvania with her parents and her younger sister Lindsey. Susie is telling her story from an ‘in between state,’ looking over the people she left behind, and watching her killer.  

Susie's family struggles with her death. A detective named Len Fenerman is in charge of the murder case. Do to the lack of evidence; he is unable to solve the case. Lindsey and her father are convinced that Mr. Harvey is guilty. They become angry at Len when there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute him, and then Mr. Harvey quietly leaves the neighborhood.

Len and Abigail start an affair. Abigail leaves her family and travels to California, where she can live an anonymous life and attempt to escape her misery. Susie's grandmother comes to stay with the rest of her family and helps them begin to live a normal life again.

Two of Susie's school friends, Ray Singh and Ruth Connors, are really affected by her death. Ray and Susie shared her only kiss, and Ray is shortly viewed as a suspect in her murder of Susie. Susie’s spirit touches Ruth when she leaves Earth. Ruth then becomes obsessed with Susie, the death of her, and ‘ghosts.’

Susie is not capable of letting her life on earth go. She watches Lindsey grow up, fall in love and become a woman. Susie's father has a heart attack, and Abigail returns home to the family. When Abigail returns, her family begins to build their bond again, because they are all coming to terms with Susie’s death, realizing they can’t change the past.  

Mr. Harvey is never caught by the police, but he dies before he can do what he did to Susie to anyone else.

Before she is able to move on, Susie returns to earth one last time, and her spirit enters Ruth's body. She makes love to Ray Singh, so she will finally have freedom from the past, and acceptance that she no longer has a future on earth. She is finally able to pass on to a ‘true heaven’ to find peace.

“And they had never understood, as they did now, what the word horror meant.” –Susie Salmon talking about how they now understand what it means from experiencing her death.

“My mother had been the one who knew the meaning of every charm on my bracelet – where we had gotten it and why I like it. She made a meticulous list of what I'd carried and worn.” –Susie Salmon This shows how close her family was.