The Lovely Bones
Author: Alice Sebold
Date read: June/July
Date published: 2002
Genre: Mystery/Drama
Rating: 3 stars
Plot summary
Susie is a young 14 year old girl that gets murdered and raped by a sick man named Mr Harvey.
At first Susie didn’t know what had happened when she first arrived in her personal heaven but
when she gets to know some of the people there she finds her place. Every single day Susie
watches from heaven to see how her family reacts and how Mr Harvey could live with the guilt
of taking an innocent persons life. Susie’s younger sister Lindsay fights to find out what
happened to Susie but one day took it too far and searched through Mr Harvey’s house when
he arrived home and almost caught her, luckily Lindsay quickly grabbed one piece of crucial
evidence: a drawing of the hole that Mr Harvey dug in which took place of Susie’s murder.
While Susie was still watching from her heaven she watched as her crush Ray Singh suffers the
effects of her death.
Character Description
Susie Salmon
Susie is 14 years old girl. She has reddish brown hair that only goes just past her shoulders,
she has very pale skin which makes her blue eyes look very bright. She is an A-grade student
and many of her teachers like her very much. She is the eldest of three in her family, her
younger sister Lindsay Salmon is only 11 when her older sister is raped then murdered.
Lindsay Salmon
She was hit emotionally very hard and had trouble hiding how she truly felt. She has long
blonde hair; her eyes are light blue just like her sisters and she is the favourite child (only
when Susie was still alive) she was considered a brainy child, she was treated differently and
was expected to do very well in all subjects.
Abigail Salmon
Susie’s mother Abigail Salmon was devastated when Susie was killed and she had decided to
leave her family for a very long time, her hair was long and a very dark brown her eyes were
brown too unlike Susie and Lindsay.
Buckley Salmon
Buckley Salmon was Susie’s youngest sibling he was the closest to her and meant the most to
her in the whole family. She had many good times with him but when she didn’t return home
for a very long time he was devastated, his parent’s didn’t tell him for 3 years that his sister
was murdered he knew that this had happened but tried to act like he knew nothing. Buckley’s
hair was long and shaggy, it was blonde and his eyes were brown; he very rarely smiled anymore
because only Susie could change that.
Mr Harvey
Mr Harvey is a sick man. He is a very strange man who collects doll houses and is very brutal
when he murders different women. He is the rapist and murderer that destroyed a family. He
has glasses, blue eyes and is a very bad person. Susie is only one of many of his innocent
victims
Personal Response
I think this book was very interesting and I enjoyed it but the thing I didn’t like about it was
at the end it didn’t say whether they caught Mr Harvey or if he lived free for the rest of his
life. The author could possibly write a sequel to this book.
Text-to-text
I have read many articles in the newspaper that relate to crime and murders and this book
reminded me of many different murder stories I have read previously and it’s interesting to see
all the different C.O.D’s (cause of death) and all the different punishments given for each
crime.
Text-to-world
I have seen lot’s of murder shows and news on TV about murder investigations on TV and I
think that it is interesting to know all different theories to who could’ve killed the victim or
why they killed their victim and in this story it shows how Susie’s father knew that Mr Harvey
was the killer and didn’t catch him because he fled.
Text-to-self
I can relate this book to myself because when I’m older I want to become a forensic scientist
to help solve murder investigations in the future.
By Alia Jones