The Lovely Bones Loss

In The Lovely Bones, Susie Salmon is murdered by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Her family has to cope with the fact that Susie is no longer among the living, but is with them through her ghost. Susie views Earth from heaven, causing her to battle several feelings with herself. Throughout the story, the family grows farther apart from each other by overcoming Susie’s death in their own separate ways. The family later comes together and reconciles to move on, letting Susie live only through their memories.

This book showed how a family could overcome death--especially the death of a young family member. The Lovely Bones successfully communicated to the reader how much of an impact a loss can have on different members of a family. The author illustrated