Jo Burdett's Book Review

The Lovely Bones
By Alice Sebold

***** Five Stars

“My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” Are the beginning two sentences of a chillingly good novel. Susie Salmon is brutally raped and murdered by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Through the whole novel, Susie narrates from heaven, which she learns is different for everyone. That every person gets their own slice of heaven. She narrates in the past and the present, watching her grieving family and relating things that happen with them with things from her own life. She follows Ray Singh, an Indian immigrant, who was the boy she “almost kissed” in the gym. Who the police suspect to be Susie’s killer, and that accusation excludes Ray and his family even more. When Susie’s father begins to suspect Mr. Harvey, and have the police ask him some questions, he comes off clean. But Mr. Salmon suspects that Harvey lied to the police, and that Harvey knows something about Susie’s killer. As her family deals with Susie’s death in each of their own ways, her mother starts to retreat into herself, her sister starts to grieve, but also doesn’t want to be known as “The dead girl’s sister”. Susie learns that she is homesick, and misses her mother with the help of her guidance counselor, Fran The suspense only grows throughout the novel, and I considered the entire book to be one of the best mystery/murder/suspense novels that were written for YA in a very, very long time.

Sebold holds the readers attention the entire book. With Susie’s childlike innocence, and the use of a child’s voice, this book is definitely worth the five stars I’ve given it. I seriously recommend this book. But only to those who are mature enough to deal with the Rape and the Murder scenes, for they are quite graphic. The graphic violence is the only reason I would consider taking a star off, but Sebold’s writing ability completely erases that possibility. Ya’ll should come to the library to check it out today!