Analysis of the Novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

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“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections - sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent - that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.” In the novel The Lovely Bones written by Alice Sebold it that takes you on an expedition that re-lives the heartbreaking moments of a life and formation of new connections between the ones that were affected by the tragedy.
Susie Salmon, the protagonist is 14 years old when she is lured by her neighbor on her way home from school into a field where she is raped, murdered, and then dismembered. In a heaven-like place Susie keeps watch over those left on Earth that matter- her family, her friends, and her killer. Susie is unable to let go of the life she had and spies and lives through those left on earth. She is consumed with trying to figure out a way to make her murderer pay for his crimes. Will the family ever find closure? Will the police ever catch the murderer and recover more than just her elbow ?
The length of the novel, the fully developed characters ,and lessons held within the story makes it a wonderful book. Alice Sebold is a gifted writer and within the first three pages of the novel, readers are hooked. They are terrified and engaged in the main character's narration and suffering. The plot is beautifully written, telling a horrifying story. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is mature enough to read it and loves the feeling of suspens...

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...hor writes about how George Harvey dismembers her body leaving the police to find Susie elbow. You know that she has been robbed of everything. Her innocence, body parts and especially her life.You feel so angry about that. I wonder if Sebold felt bad for Susie and wanted her to have that one moment for herself when she she writes about how ray and Susie sleep together. As much as you want to give Susie her moment with one of the characters I think it would have made the novel so much deeper and touching if she never got it because in my opinion it would of made the book more touching and powerful.
Anyone who reads the novel will see the powerful messages in it and will relive the torturous moments in Susie life. The connections that form between the characters through the death of the narrator throughout the novel make the book out of this world and mind boggling.

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