The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2004, Paperback, Reprint)

A 14 year old girl takes her usual shortcut home from school through a cornfield. A man/neighbor who lives alone, persuades her to have a look at an underground den he has recently dug in the field. Once inside, he rapes and kills her,dismembers her body, puts her parts in a safe & dumps it in a sinkhole. "Susie's" spirit then goes to heaven. Hell of a start, huh?!

Her family can't accept she's dead, until her hat and blood are found. The police talk to the man, finding him odd but seeing no reason to suspect him. Susie's father Jack, on extended leave from work, begins to suspect "Mr.Harvey", a notion his surviving daughter Lindsey has also.

Trying to help her father prove his suspicions, Lindsey sneaks into Harvey's house, finds a diagram of the underground den, but is forced to leave when Harvey returns unexpectedly. The police, however, satisfied with Harvey's explanation, do not arrest him, which allows him to flee Norristown. Later, evidence is discovered linking Harvey to Susie's murder, as well as to those of several other young girls. Susie meets his other victims in heaven and she is persuaded to cross over but she wishes to bring closure to her life and family.

Abigail (wife) leaves Jack, taking a job at a winery in California. Her mother, Grandma Lynn, moves into the Salmons' home to care for Buckley and Lindsey. Lindsey and her boyfriend, Samuel Heckler, become engaged, find an old house in the woods owned by a classmate's father, and decide to fix it up and live there. Sometime after the celebration, while arguing with Buckley, Jack suffers a heart attack. The emergency prompts Abigail to return from California, but the reunion is tempered by her son, Buckley's, lingering bitterness for her abandoning the family.

Meanwhile, Harvey returns to Norristown after being on the run, which has become more built on. He goes to his old neighborhood and notices the school is being expanded into the cornfield where he murdered Susie. He drives by the sinkhole where Susie's body rests and where Ruth Connors and Ray Singh are standing. Ruth, Susie's former classmate who had felt Susie's spirit rush past her after her murder, senses the women Harvey has killed and is physically overcome.

Susie from heaven, is also overwhelmed with emotion and feels how she and Ruth transcend their present existence, and the two girls exchange positions: Susie, her spirit now in Ruth's body, connects with Ray, who had a crush on Susie in school, and had made plans to go out with her a few days before the murder. Ray senses Susie's presence, and takes advantage of the fact that Susie is briefly back with him. In Hal Heckler's (the older brother of Lindsey's boyfriend Samuel) bike shop they find a room to make love, as Susie has longed to do after witnessing her sister and Samuel. Afterwards, Susie must return to heaven.

Susie moves on into another, larger part of heaven, occasionally watching earthbound events. Her sister gives birth to a daughter, Abigail Suzanne. When stalking another young girl in New Hampshire, Harvey is hit by a huge icicle and falls down a snow-covered slope, eventually freezing to death to the movie crowd and my 'cheering'. Susie closes the story by wishing her family "a long and happy life."

Don't miss this movie! It's a definite tear jerker/suspence but good for all except gore hounds and thriller nuts. Those stay away (-: Buy on ebay for the going rate w/ S&H. It's a great movie and a great deal!

DTD

The narrator is a young woman, Susie Salmon, who lives in Pennsylvania in a middle-class neighborhood and is 14 years old, when the story begins.

She will remain 14, since she was murdered in the first chapter.

The murder was committed by a neighbor, George Harvey. He greeted Susie as she was cutting through a cornfield on her way home from school. Neither she, nor her family, knew him well, nor did any of the other neighbors, for that matter.

Harvey maintained a beautiful yard, but kept to himself most of the time. Everyone saw him as a bit odd, perhaps, because of his distancing himself from others, but he looked rather ordinary.

No one was aware of the secrets he carried in his heart about the women whose lives he had taken in other places when posing as someone else.

He made his living building and selling doll houses to exclusive shops. Thus, he had little need to socialize or venture out of his home unless he needed supplies for his work or groceries or some such.

He had planned to murder Susie and had taken time to prepare, so that he wouldn’t be suspected nor caught. He had secretly built an underground room in the cornfield and lured Susie there.

That was where she was sexually assaulted and killed. He dismembered her body, took it home, put it into an old iron safe, and disposed of it in a sinkhole.

When he was taking the body home, unbeknownst to him, he lost part of one arm. That was almost the only evidence that anyone ever found that gave a clue as to what had happened to her. She was missing for just a few days when the elbow turned up.

A couple of possessions of hers turned up eventually also, but they offered no additional assistance in locating her.

Of course, her family was distressed when she turned up missing. The fact that she was missing and presumed dead affected the rest of their lives.

Harvey was suspected of causing harm to Susie, but no one could prove it, although her father and the police both tried to do so.

Susie’s sister eventually broke into his home, found a piece of paper in a notebook that pointed to his guilt, but he was quick to leave town after that. The police then searched his home and discovered the bones of neighborhood pets that had disappeared over time in the crawl space of his home, but no signs of Susie.

Although the murder and Harvey’s disappearance occur near the beginning of the book, the rest is what makes the story unusual: Susie narrates the activities of her family and friends from her celestial home. She watches what they do to try to solve her disappearance/murder in frustration.

She cannot give any assistance to them although there are many instances when she would like to be able to do or say just one thing to help them.

The story is mesmerizing because the reader hopes that just one time the powers that be will allow her to help them on just one occasion to solve the mystery of what happened to her or to help them with something that is troubling them in their personal lives.

The book was first copyrighted in 2002. It has been appearing prominently in displays in bookstores recently because a movie made from the book is being released this month.

You might want to check into this good read. Remember: the book is usually better than the movie.

"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold is a book you will not be able to put down. I am not much of a reader but when "The Lovely Bones" was recommended to me by a teacher I decided to give it a chance. Once I started reading I was hooked. I was so intrigued by the excitement and suspense that I finished the book in three days!
This fast-paced reader is about a young teenage girl who is innocent in every possible way. She enjoys life and her connection to her family is like none other. The love her father has for his children is inspirational to say the least. On an average day, Susie (the teenage girl) is walking home from school and decides to take a short cut through a corn field. As she is walking without a care in the world, she runs into her neighbor. Her neighbor kindly asks Susie to check out a "fort" that he supposively built for the neighborhood children. Susie is skeptical at first but her manipulative neighbor has no trouble convincing her that there is no reason to be scared. What happens next will undoubtedly give you a range of emotion. From excitement and disbelieve to sadness and pure anger. Give "The Lovely Bones" a try and you won't be disappointed.

I decided to read this book because of the movie that is coming out and I am so glad that I did. I absolutely could not put it down and finished it in less than 24 hours. The Lovely Bones is now, by far, the best book I have ever read. At first I was a bit skeptical about how a writer would pull off a book about rape and murder being told from a child's point of view from heaven. She did an amazing job of it. Her words suck you in and let you clearly see the world from behind Susie's eyes. You can feel the emotions Susie is feeling. I almost cried so many times throughout the book. I absolutely love the way the author writes. Her wording and flow are beautiful. I definitely recommend The Lovely Bones to anyone wanting to read an amazing, well-written book.

I was recommended this book by a friend, and I am writing a review because I think everyone should read it! The first chapter is difficult to get through because of the pain you feel for the main caracter (Susie). You will find yourself wishing you were really there, and that you could stop the brutality or at least help her call for help.

The book transforms into a story about a family learning to live with themselves and to cope within a tragic situation. The family is torn apart but in the end the bond of blood hold strong and Susie gets to live her life through them from her spot in heaven.

The entire book is beautifully written! Stop reading this, and go buy a copy!