15 Mar Book Review: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Some books break your heart from the very first page, and The Lovely Bones is one of them. It’s a novel about grief, loss, and the way tragedy ripples through the lives of those left behind. But it’s also about love, memory, and the small, everyday moments that make up a life. Alice Sebold takes what could have been a standard crime novel and turns it into something profoundly emotional, blending the brutality of a terrible crime with the beauty of a young girl’s perspective from beyond the grave.

What’s it about?

The novel begins with an immediate, gut-wrenching revelation. Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl, has been murdered. She is telling her story from the afterlife, watching as her family and friends struggle to move forward in the wake of her disappearance. She was walking home from school one evening when she was lured into an underground hiding place by her seemingly ordinary neighbor, Mr. Harvey. He kills her, but in the moment after her death, she finds herself in a strange new space—a version of heaven that is uniquely her own.

Susie’s heaven is not the grand, religious paradise many imagine. Instead, it is a place that reflects her own personality and desires. It has the things she loves—dogs, high school lockers, the smell of her mother’s baking—but it is also incomplete. She can watch her family, but she can never return to them. She sees their grief unfold in real time, sees how her absence leaves a permanent scar on their lives.

Back on Earth, her parents, Jack and Abigail, struggle to cope in very different ways. Jack, her father, becomes obsessed with solving Susie’s murder, refusing to believe that the case will simply go cold. He suspects Mr. Harvey early on but has no way to prove it, leading to frustration and obsession that begins to fracture his relationships. Abigail, unable to bear the weight of her grief, slowly withdraws, eventually leaving the family to find some sense of herself outside of the tragedy.

Susie’s younger sister, Lindsey, is forced to grow up too soon. She deals with the weight of being “the girl whose sister was murdered” while also coming into her own identity. She is the one who eventually takes action, sneaking into Mr. Harvey’s house in search of evidence, unknowingly coming dangerously close to uncovering the truth.

Meanwhile, Susie’s childhood crush, Ray Singh, and her friend Ruth, a girl with an unusual sensitivity to the dead, become connected in unexpected ways. Ruth, who barely knew Susie in life, begins to feel her presence everywhere, sensing the lingering echoes of those who have passed. She and Ray form a bond over Susie’s absence, and their role in the story adds another layer to the novel’s exploration of memory and the way people leave their marks on others.

As the years pass, Susie watches her family grow, change, and attempt to heal. Mr. Harvey, her killer, continues to evade justice, slipping through the cracks of the legal system. But the novel does not let him escape entirely. In a quiet yet powerful moment, years later, he meets an unceremonious and ironic end, falling to his death in an accident. It is not the dramatic retribution one might expect in a conventional thriller, but it is fitting in the novel’s larger themes—that justice is not always clean, that closure does not always come in the way people expect.

One of the most controversial moments in the novel comes when Susie briefly returns to the world in an unusual way. In a supernatural moment, she takes over Ruth’s body and finally experiences the life she was robbed of, sharing an intimate moment with Ray. It is a strange, unexpected scene that has divided readers, but it serves as Susie’s last, fleeting connection to the world she left behind.

As time goes on, Susie’s family slowly begins to heal. They never forget her, but they learn to carry their loss rather than be consumed by it. And Susie, too, begins to let go. In the final moments of the novel, she finally moves beyond her in-between world, accepting what has happened and finding peace.

What This Chick Thinks

A heartbreaking and unique perspective

Telling a story from the perspective of a murdered girl could have easily felt gimmicky, but Alice Sebold makes it work beautifully. Susie’s voice is haunting yet full of life. She is not just a victim; she is a girl who had dreams, who loved her family, who wanted more time. Her narration gives the novel a sense of intimacy, making the loss feel all the more devastating.

More than just a murder story

At its core, The Lovely Bones is not a crime novel. It is not about catching a killer or seeking revenge. It is about grief, about the way people process loss in their own ways, about how life moves forward even when it feels impossible. The murder is the catalyst, but the story is about what happens after.

An exploration of family and healing

Each member of Susie’s family reacts differently to her death, and the novel does an excellent job of showing the way grief splinters relationships. Jack’s obsession, Abigail’s withdrawal, Lindsey’s quiet strength—every reaction feels painfully real. There is no right way to grieve, and this book does not try to force one.

A quiet, unsettling horror

Though not a horror novel in the traditional sense, The Lovely Bones is deeply unsettling. The way Mr. Harvey moves unnoticed through life, the way he avoids consequences, the way the world simply continues even after something so terrible has happened—these elements are terrifying in their own way. The horror here is not just in the crime, but in the way justice often fails.

Final Thoughts

The Lovely Bones is a novel that stays with you. It is sad, but it is also beautiful. It captures the pain of loss but also the small moments of hope that follow. It does not offer easy answers or perfect closure, but it gives a deeply moving look at what it means to love, to remember, and to let go. If you want a novel that will break your heart and put it back together in unexpected ways, this is one worth reading.

Rating: 9/10

Try it if you like

• Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver – Another novel about a girl caught between life and death, reflecting on the world she left behind.
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – A beautifully written story narrated by Death, exploring loss and the power of memory.
• A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness – A heartbreaking novel about grief and coming to terms with loss, blending reality with a touch of the supernatural.