The Lovely Bones

By Alice Sebold
You'd have to be living under a rock not to at least have seen this book around. I've seen it many times and as usual, I refused to hop on the bandwagon right away. I'm glad I finally got on for the ride. The narrative of this book is really different than anything I've ever read. Susie Salmon at fourteen is brutally raped and murdered by her neighbor. The rest of the book is Susie watching her family, friends, and her killer from her personalized heaven.
What's really interesting is that instead of first person narrative from each character we get first person emotions and actions through Susie. Because she is dead she can sense the thoughts and feelings of the other characters and express them to us. This is really brilliant as we get so many perspectives on the story but through only one "voice."
The actions and plot are very realistic. This is life in the suburbs. All the houses look the same but behind the similar facades are broken hearts, broken marriages, weak adults, strong children, murderers, and unhappiness. The end is not tied up neatly in a bow, and I appreciate that as life never is. This is an impressive debut novel. Alice Sebold's next novel is due out in October and I'm looking forward to reading it. Peter Jackson is directing the movie, which is very exciting as he is good at the adaptations.