The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones" is a hauntingly beautiful novel that keeps you wanting to read more. The main themes in The Lovely Bones, are death, longing, and the Salmon family's long journey through grief. Death plays a large role in this story because Susie Salmon, a fourteen year old high school student, is brutally raped and killed while walking home from school one day. Mr. Harvey, her friendly, slightly odd next door neighbor, is the man who killed her. He enjoys killing things, and so as to avoid killing humans, he starts off by killing small animals, such as birds and mice, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child. He then advances onto dogs and cats, and finishes off with humans. Susie is only one of his many victims, as he has killed a wide range of women- from six year olds to fifty year olds. When questioned by the police, Mr. Harvey says he is widower to a woman named Leah. Later on, he says his wife's name was Sophie. Whatever his latest victim's name is, that is the name he uses when people ask him what his wife's name. The Salmon family's journey is quite similar to Susie's. This was part of the reason she lingered around in a certain part of heaven for so long - Her heaven, which is described as the place that you imagined you would go to in the afterlife. You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. Susie quietly makes her exit and moves on to the real heaven. At times Susie feels jealousy and regret, however she eventually comes to accept the fact that she will never see her family on earth again. Another reason why she stayed was because she had "unfinished business" to take care of. They desperately miss her and feel incredibly guilty for not being there when she needed them most. One day, Susie possesses Ruth's body and makes love to the boy she had a crush on. A miraculous event like this centered around Ray Singh made him see he is in love with Ruth. Everything reminds them of her, and Lindsay is no longer seen as