The Lovely Bones Review

"Hidden" :15 Trailer

At first glance, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold looked like one of those emotionally draining works of fiction that I generally avoid like how cats avoid water. But a combination of the movie adaptation by Peter Jackson, a recent lady friend who adored the book, and the survival of my sex life with the aforementioned lady friend prompted me to get this book along with a cup of tea and box of tissues to accompany reading it.

Set in the dark ages before the Internet known as the 60s, the Salmon family is the average American family until Susie's fateful night with her neighbor George Harvey results in her rape, murder, and dismemberment. Those expecting a gripping murder mystery will be sorely disappointed since such a development is revealed during the first chapter. Susie goes to heaven, George flees the city, and the picture perfect Salmon family is torn apart over the death of one of their own. All in all, the plot is a typical mourning story usually associated with a Lifetime Channel movie.

But even if the plot is cookie cutter complete with the bad guy getting his comeuppance, it is the emotional roller coaster that the family goes through really sells the story for me. This is not the cliché where the family mourns the loss, finds the killer, sends him to justice, and eventually learns to move on with their lives. No, sir, the family literally tears itself apart in a believable manner and never gets over the loss of Susie albeit they seem to be the unluckiest family ever. Yet the emotions conveyed and development leading to such breakdowns are written superbly to make everything sound realistic. I find myself feeling for their plight and understanding why they wind up making poor decisions under the trauma of the incident.

The presentation of Susie's spirit and the author's interpretation of heaven is one of the key features of the story, but is sadly moot for me due to a lack of religion, spirituality, or belief in either. I was never really sold on the scenes involving Susie such as the love scene that mimics Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze using Whoopi Goldberg's body during Ghost and a cliché feeling of pity towards her killer. Perhaps the visionary Peter Jackson will film the ghost scenes and heaven into something I can get into for his movie. We shall see sinceThe Lovely Bones is now playing in theaters.