The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Susie Salmon is in junior high, is in love with a boy (well at that age it must feel like it), and is dead. You'll already know the killer because this isn't supposed to be a mystery. It's supposed to be about a family and a girl healing from her death.

George Harvey is the killer. He not only kills her but rapes her. The raping part I didn't realize when watching the movie. I stopped reading and don't think I've picked it up again. At least I don't remeber finishing it till now. So we'll pretend I didn't. It took two days for me to muster on and read those pages and finally get past it. Harvey is such a creep. I shudder when thinking about it. Literally. I remember seeing the movie and the actor who played it in my mind. And that actor I've seen before and he did such a good job with the role...

All they found was an elbow. All they found of her. They also found papers and other school supplies including the book she was supposed to read. He had cut her into pieces and shoved her in a safe. She saw it all. She saw how he easily persuaded someone to help him put her in a sink hole. All evidence lost. No one can say now that he did it. She clings on to the hope in her Heaven. Her Heaven is whatever she wants it to be textbooks that are fashion magazines, dogs and puppies always all around,  a friend, the highschool she never went to. And in her Heaven she looks out and sees the struggle her father has to deal with. His girl needed her but he couldn't do anything about it. Her mother who was always a bit strange closing off. Her sister not being able to look herself in the mirror because she sees her dead sister staring back at her. And her brother who doesn't know that much at all. Grows up angry and hurt.

She watches for years as they struggle and watches her killer live. I realized by the end that the world sucks. It's painful, it's cruel, and it's the truth. It throws things at you that you might never recover from. It takes years to recover. But when you find peace it isn't as half as bad as it was. And even during the pain you can be happy.

I cried a lot during this book. I basically expressed everything in the paragraph above. It had so much more pain then in the movie. Here the years seemed to drag on forever. The movie as well brought something to the story. It I think was structured better and made a bit more sense at the end but the book at the end was pretty ridiculous. It was a real journey through the book.

The author knows how to push your buttons. It also makes you think of heaven and what yours would like. I know this may sound depressing but I've thought about it a couple of times before. Where she sees them is interesting. On a gazebo she watches them. Her father definitely got the worst of it. They all had a lot of pain. Her sister grew strong. The movie showed a more satisfying moment of how strong she was but whatever. I don't remember her brother much in the movie. It was sad seeing him grow up. He grew up fast. Her mother just made me angry. She didn't even look like she cared but then you figure out she did. It just took her awhile to show it. Ray and Ruth were more in the book. And it was interesting to see them grow. Ruth especially because she would see more after Susie happened to brush past her after she dies.

The movie had some better aspects to it. Like I said before the structure and as a movie has to be it was more vivid. It was so bright and looked fantastic even though it was a depressing story.

Truly a rewarding read. It's a real journey. It was the whole thing of a child being taken away in such an ugly matter that makes you feel more with this book. I didn't realize the back story of the author's. I understand why she wrote this book.