The Lovely Bones
The Lovely Bones Review Dear Mr. English Department Chair,
It has been brought to my attention that the “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold has been put on the Banned/Challenged list of books 2013 in certain libraries. If you aren’t familiar with this text, it is about a 14 year old girl, Susie Salmon, living in Pennsylvania who is asked by her serial killer neighbor to check out his underground cove where he makes doll houses. The fact that he is a serial killer is unbeknownst to her so she agrees. Unfortunately and sadly, Susie is brutally murdered by him. After reading the book I could see how it would possibly be put there. Primarily due to the gruesome nature of the protagonist’s death that many people could find disturbing. Secondly, it could’ve been put there because of inappropriate behavior and frequent illegal substance use that the curriculum wouldn’t want teenagers to read about. But I believe the book should be placed on the Summer reading list because of how much it made me think. I pondered many of the topics brought up in this book that high schoolers should really reflect upon. Mainly, the book has brought up the hard suffering of life and death and the dangerous aspects of life that teenagers are facing today or will encounter. It has really provoked deep thought and required analytic and inferential skills with every page. Teenagers in high school can relate to problems that characters are facing and can help to cope with them. This book specifically deals with coping with grief. Most of the book consists of susie’s point of view in her heaven looking down on earth after being murdered. She looks after her loved ones and murderer. She longs to talk with her sister Lindsey and to play Monopoly with her brother Buckley. She wants to build ships in bottles with her dad and take pictures with her mom. She craves being with her friends that she left behind and to go to school just one more day. Sebold writes long descriptions with little
It has been brought to my attention that the “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold has been put on the Banned/Challenged list of books 2013 in certain libraries. If you aren’t familiar with this text, it is about a 14 year old girl, Susie Salmon, living in Pennsylvania who is asked by her serial killer neighbor to check out his underground cove where he makes doll houses. The fact that he is a serial killer is unbeknownst to her so she agrees. Unfortunately and sadly, Susie is brutally murdered by him. After reading the book I could see how it would possibly be put there. Primarily due to the gruesome nature of the protagonist’s death that many people could find disturbing. Secondly, it could’ve been put there because of inappropriate behavior and frequent illegal substance use that the curriculum wouldn’t want teenagers to read about. But I believe the book should be placed on the Summer reading list because of how much it made me think. I pondered many of the topics brought up in this book that high schoolers should really reflect upon. Mainly, the book has brought up the hard suffering of life and death and the dangerous aspects of life that teenagers are facing today or will encounter. It has really provoked deep thought and required analytic and inferential skills with every page. Teenagers in high school can relate to problems that characters are facing and can help to cope with them. This book specifically deals with coping with grief. Most of the book consists of susie’s point of view in her heaven looking down on earth after being murdered. She looks after her loved ones and murderer. She longs to talk with her sister Lindsey and to play Monopoly with her brother Buckley. She wants to build ships in bottles with her dad and take pictures with her mom. She craves being with her friends that she left behind and to go to school just one more day. Sebold writes long descriptions with little