Imagine being attacked, beaten, and brutally raped. Would you tell anyone? Would you box it up, and send it away? How about write about it? That’s exactly what Alice Sebold did; the author of Lucky, and The Lovely Bones.
If you’ve had the privilege or reading her first book Lucky, the memoir of her rape, The Lovely Bones would be another great read that makes you question yourself. The New Yorker called it, “A stunning achievement.” Alice Sebold has won the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction in 2003, and the Bram Stoker Award for her first novel in 2002. After reading The Lovely Bones, you will definitely think she deserves the awards she has been given. The Lovely Bones starts off as innocent as a baby singing, but turns into a horror story, not even halfway through the first paragraph. “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973…It was still back when people believed things like that didn’t happen.” Sebold writes the story in Susie’s perspective, but the catch is that she’s already dead. Throughout the book Susie’s parents are going through rough patches due to Susie’s death, her sister is confused, her brother Buckley is growing up, and her friends are maturing as young adults. All happening while Susie watches them from heaven, knowing who killed her, but staying young forever. The main character might be young physically, but mentally she sprouts with her family and friends, as does the reader. The Lovely Bones will twist and turn, sometimes confusing you in the process, but all in all a very unique book. Anyone who doesn’t even want to put forth the effort to read about a girl in heaven, listening to everything that everybody says, is utterly absurd. Anyone who’s anyone would like to know how people would react at their funeral, or what people say about them after they’re gone, or to even somehow still watch over the people they love. It’s rare to find a book about a girl watching her murderer while she’s in heaven. I definitely recommend this book to everyone. Everyone can relate to this book someway or another, whether it’s questioning if there’s actually an afterlife, death of a loved one, being a survivor of rape, or watching your family get pulled apart. Some might not like it, understand it, or relate to it but it’s still a moving story about how one person can control everyone, even when they’re dead.