The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (Little-Brown & Co., 2002) **

 

The most unusual thing about this novel is the point-of-view, which is primarily that of a fourteen-year-old girl, Suzie Salmon (yes, I know, but at least they didn’t name her Smokey), who has been raped and murdered and is now surveying the ongoing situation and the lives of her friends--and the murderer--from a heavenly perspective.  Her assailant was a neighbor, and it turns out that he is also a serial killer who has killed before and will almost certainly kill again if he isn’t found out and apprehended..

 

 Suzie watches not only her friends and relatives grieving over her death, but also the activities of her assailant and the detective who is working on the case.  What might seem like a rather morbid story is actually rather light-hearted and upbeat, primarily because that’s the kind of person Suzie is.  She alternates between interest in her friends and relatives, watching them live the lives she might have lived, and following the activities of her murderer and the ongoing investigation.  The story is consequently a very interesting  combination of a coming-of-age (that might have been) and a detective story.  She is concerned about the effect grief has on her parents, as well as her younger sister and little brother, all of whom deal with her loss in very different ways.  She is also concerned about the threat posed by her murderer to other young girls and women as he continues to elude the law. 

 

This novel is actually fairly light reading and not easy to put down.  It’s the kind of book that brings you into the story and keeps you interested in the characters, despite a patently incredible point-of-view.  You may think the ending is a bit too ideal, but it’s consistent with this hopeful and upbeat story.