The Lovely Bones

The torturous and murderous Mr. Harvey cuts up young Suzie's body with a knife. He dismembers her in order to hide her body. The rape and murder of Suzie is made all the more horrific by the...

Although she is a fairly minor character in the book, Flora Hernandez is a key catalyst for Susie to release some of her pain following her murder in The Lovely Bones. Like Susie, Flora Hernandez...

He does know. He can't prove it. Susie's dad knows from the way George Harvey looks at him, and Harvey's manner when Susie's dad helps Harvey build the tent. One of the themes of the book is how...

No, the police do not catch Mr. Harvey. However, he is suspected and questioned by the police. Unfortunately, the police are not able to connect Mr. Harvey to the crime. The investigation...

I would argue that there are two overall themes in Alice Sebold’s thought-provoking novel: grief and letting go. The most memorable scene of grief in this novel is arguably the moment when Susie’s...

Mr. Harvey (Susie Salmon's killer) dies on page 327 of the very last chapter called "Bones" (the only chapter with a verbal instead of a numerical name); however, it is not the fact that he dies...

Apart from a very significant literary allusion, I am guessing that it was the writer of the screenplay for The Lovely Bones that wrote the poem you speak of (because Alice Sebold does not include...

The title is significant as it refers to Susie Salmon, the young fourteen-year-old girl who is brutally raped, murdered, and dismembered in the book. The bones for which her family and the police...

In the novel The Lovely Bones, the title has various implications as the reader explores the story. At first sight, the title suggests bones as a literal part of a skeleton. Before even reading the...

Alice Sebold became inspired to write The Lovely Bones from two different instances. The first instance, is her own horrible experience having been a victim of a brutal rape during her college...

While The Lovely Bones is told from a deceased person's point of view, it is not a fantasy. The film version devotes so much time to the fantastical elements of Susie's time in Heaven, that much of...

Mr. Harvey's unusual death—stumbling into an icy ravine after being hit by a falling icicle—is deeply symbolic. Harvey has gotten away with all the terrible crimes he's committed over the years,...

When examining figurative language, keep in mind that it is writing that the author does not intend for you to take literally. Figurative language adds depth and beauty to the author's story. In...

The effect that Susie Salmon's death has on her family is life-changing to say the least. All are completely shaken and unable to function in their day-to-day lives to varying degrees. As Susie was...

It is best to leave it to an early high school population due to the nature of the story, and because there is expletive language used in the book. The description in which Susie is raped and...

One of the fascinating aspects of this novel is the way in which it presents us with a whole gamut of different reactions to death. Whilst Jack becomes obsessed with finding his daughter's...

After Susie Salmon’s death, both parents suffer from their loss and their guilt over the difficulty of helping the other children because of the weight of their own grief. Abigail, her mother,...

The main difference between the novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and filmmaker Peter Jackson's adaptation for the screen lies in the portrayal of the world of heaven experienced by the main...

On page 8 of my version of this book, which is the ebook, Mr Harvey instructs Susie to take her clothes off. This, he says, is so that he can check if she is still a virgin. Rather than obeying...

Abigail leaves her family for seven years to take care of herself. She walks out in 1975. She is profoundly unhappy and has deep grief and guilt over Susie's death. "Her need to find...

It is very common for serial killers to experiment with killing animals before they move on to humans, or kill animals when they do not have access to humans. Killing animals is actually part of...

The answer to this question can be found in Chapter Two of this great novel. This, of course, occurs directly after the brutal murder of Susie by Mr. Harvey in his structure that he had built in...

Susie and her father had made the ships in a bottle together, and they are a reminder to him of her death. Jack, Susie's father, looks at the snow globes and the bottles with ships inside as...

Alice Sebold’s intention on writing “The Lovely Bones” was to let the reader know that ordinary human connections are tricky and complicated, but it is exactly these connections that make us human....

Susie Salmon's heaven is an amalgamation of her own dreams and wishes as told by Alice Sebold. It is in no way the "traditional" image of heaven (with angels, pearly gates, and clouds). Susie's...

One of the major themes in Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones has to do with the power of love to guide the process of grieving and healing. When the novel opens, the reader learns immediately that...

In addition to the other techniques mentioned in the previous posts, Sebold also uses elements of the supernatural that takes her novel outside the realm of straightforward realism or...

Figurative language is used in literature to make writing more imaginative. A metaphor is a type of figurative language that compares two unlike things without using the words like or as. A simile...

One conflict is between Abigail and Jack. They each need to deal with Susie's death in a different way, and they do not understand each other's grieving processes. Jack faces his memories head-on,...

Although there are several understandings of grieving process, a popular framework is the five stages of grief, also known as the Kübler-Ross model. This argues that those who have lost a loved one...

In The Lovely Bones, one of the critical pieces of evidence left behind after Susie is murdered the keystone state charm. The charm itself is representative of Suzie because it bears her initials....

In Chapter 11, readers learn that Mr. Harvey kept the bodies of animals he'd killed hidden in his crawlspace. In Chapter 14, readers see that he keeps an odd sketchbook. In Chapter 15, though, we...

I think that when reading The Lovely Bones, the first connection I made was with Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak. It is a story about a young girl who was raped at a party and called the cops who...

It's summertime in chapter 10 of The Lovely Bones. Ruth, Samuel, and Lindsay are attending the statewide Gifted Symposium, a retreat for bright children from the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades....

In my opinion, one of the first indications that the family is using isolation to cope manifests itself in their isolation from Susie's room: Already my private territory had become a no man's...

By anyone's standards Mr. Harvey is a throughly nasty piece of work. As a child-murderer and pedophile he's not exactly someone who invites much in the way of sympathy. Though he undoubtedly had a...

Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones is a lot like Mia Hall in If I Stay. Both characters are kept from participating in the action of the book for most of the story. In Susie's case, it's because...

Alice Sebold nicely marks the answer to your question by a line that vividly stands out in the text: "These were my dreams on Earth." Namely, Susie's dreams on earth often focus on high school....

It is actually two similes because it first compares horror on earth to a flower and then it compares it to a sun. They are both similes because each use the word like. Sebold is purposely using...

George Harvey is an unassuming person; he doesn't leave much of an impression on others. Most people aren't suspicious of him. Susie says that Harvey wears small round glasses with gold frames....

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones tells the story of the Salmon family and their journey of self-discovery that comes after the death of oldest daughter, Susie. Each member of the family embarks on...

The two other social issues in the novel are violent sexual crimes against children and the difficulty of identifying pedophile sex offenders. Let's discuss the social problem of pedophile sex...

The story, as well as Susie's issue in the story is watching these three persons (her mom, her Dad, and her sister) go through the 5 stages of grief which are: denial, anger, bargaining,...

You know, this is a REALLY good question! Even though it's one of those that is directly stated in the book, it is glossed over so very much that one doesn't notice the answer. It's just the kind...

Great question! There are a number of social issues in just about every book out there. Some social issues include bullying, obesity, divorce, moving, unemployment, death and yes, grief. A social...

Susie's mother, Abigail Salmon, can be used as an example of both internal and external conflicts. Abigail struggles internally with dissatisfaction with her life. She loves her husband and...