The Lovely Bones

            I am still currently reading the Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. So far in the book Susie is talking about her life from her heaven to the reader. She explains what is happening down on earth and how everyone she used to know is growing up.  As time passes on, she notices how her death is having littler importance in the lives of those she knew.

            One thing that I found interesting from this book is the way the author sets up the scene of the book. It takes place in a Pennsylvanian suburb, and as Susie describes it, a very boring neighborhood. Susie mentions in the book how what was her house is very similar to what Mr. Harvey’s —the man that murders her—house. I think that this detail adds to the spookiness of Susie’s disappearance. I think that the fact the Susie’s house and all other’s around her are exactly the same, make it seem like there is no difference between Susie’s Family, Mr. Harvey’s, or anyone else in their neighborhood. When Lindsey—Susie’s younger sister—goes into Mr. Harvey’s house she notices that it looks like every normal house would. I think that this is what makes it scary because there is no way to tell that he is a murderer. When a police official or a detective went into his house, they thought that he was just an ordinary man living alone. They did not get the feeling that he could be a murderer because from the outside alone, he looked like everyone else.

            I think that Alice Sebold set it up this way so that the reader is spooked by Mr. Harvey from the very beginning of the book. One thing I also noticed in the book is how when Susie is telling the reader about how she was murdered; she tells the reader who killed her and when she was killed right from the beginning. When I first read the book I thought that the book had to be shorter than it was because in the first 100 pages alone, Susie talks about everything relating to her death. But what ends up happening is she tells the reader about other people’s lives, and though those lives have stopped revolving around Susie’s death, you can still see how much it changes everyone Susie knew.