The Lovely Bones Essay

Alice Sebold is an American author best known for her book, The Lovely Bones. She was born on September 6th, 1963, in Madison, Wisconsin. Sebold had a rough early life. Jane, Sebold’s mother was an alcoholic who suffered from panic and anxiety attacks regularly, which often left Sebold, and her sister Mary, on their own to fend for themselves. Sebold’s father was a little more on the sensible side, he tried to ease some of the dysfunction in their family by moving to Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, Sebold tried to separate herself from her family, so she began to attend college in upstate New York. Within her first year at university, tragedy struck when Sebold was walking back to her dorm. Sebold was viciously attacked and

The book immediately catches the reader’s attention by starting off with the rape and murder of fourteen year old, Susie Salmon. The book is written in Susie’s point of view as she watches from heaven as her friend’s and family’s lives change in an attempt to cope with their loss. The story takes place in 1973, in a town in Pennsylvania. This is the type of town where nothing bad seems to happen and everyone seems to be happy with their lives. This all changes after Susie is brutally murdered by her neighbor Mr. Harvey, that is the true moment that the towns happy persona is shattered. In a hopeless attempt to deny what has happened to her. Susie refuses to let go of her family, friends, and her life back on earth, which makes her after life very difficult. For a long time, her body remains undiscovered, and her murderer 's identity is a mystery, which pains her even more, because she wants her murderer to be found and punished. The pain of losing her daughter becomes too much for Susie’s mother, so she leaves her family. Her father, Jack, refuses to accept Susie’s death, because he is wants to know what happened to Susie, so he continues to search for answers and question each of his neighbors. Eventually both Jack and Susie’s sister, Lindsey, have become suspicious over their neighbor Mr. Harvey. Upon realizing this Mr. Harvey makes a run for it, he escapes to a nearby town and tries to hide from anyone that could want revenge for Susie. In the end, Susie gets her revenge when Mr. Harvey has a large chunk of ice fall and hit him in the head, causing him to die. This book definitely fits the criteria of a Sebold novel. From the murder and rape of Susie to the tense mystery mixed in to the novel, the entire story screams tragedy. When Sebold was raped there was definitely a chance that she could have been murdered that night. The traumatic events that took place in Sebold’s life, changed her whole perspective on life and has opened