The Lovely Bones
-cherishing the present ones

by Javert Zhang

ENG 3U
Ms. Dell’Erede
6 Oct 2014

In Alice Sebold’s novel “The Lovely Bones”, she focuses on a teenage girl named Susie. It was emotional and dealt with themes I had never touched before. The first-person point of view used in this story adds a solemn tone. To get to know the anger and hopelessness Susie feels deepens the sadness described in the novel. If it was written in third-person, then we wouldn’t feel as attached to the characters. Susie telling the story adds so much more detail and understand the whole book. The whole novel is full of love, friendship, family support which makes me identity her. Sometimes she’s experience reminds me of what I have done in the past and the words she says seems all match my mind.
Susie, a fourteen-year-old girl plays key role in the whole story. Susie is murdered by a man that has murdered many times and has never been caught. Lovely bones are his private collection of all his victims. He always saved a personal item so he could relive their death at his hands over and over. Susie, is murdered, so all that exists of her is "bones". Then after the murdering, she’s soul goes to the heaven, she can know the things ever before. It is especially important that she witnesses the change of her families, how they be distressed, how they be Irresponsible, and then how they know to be cherish.
First, Susie’s death makes lots of grieving to her families. As shown in the novel, “Every day he got up, before sleep wore off, he was who he used to be. Then, as his consciousness woke, it was as if poison seeped in. At first he couldn’t even get up. He lay there under a heavy weight. But then only movement could save him, and he moved and he moved and he moved, no movement being enough to make up for it. The guilt on him, the hand of God pressing down on him, saying, You were not there when your daughter needed you.”(Page 65 8-16) “ Susie’s death makes her father going into a cycle of remorse, his mind is wandering, and his body looks malaise. And in my point, I think most of people have no idea how to cherish the present ones, and keep regretting when tragedy happens. And sometimes people’s death warns the remaining about the importance of companying which connects family members being closer to each other.
Second, after Susie's death, Susie’s mother walks out and abandons her family. As shown in the novel, “‘It was,’ she conceded. She was on the phone in the office of the winery. Things had slowed up after the lunch crowd, but five limos of old ladies, sheets to the wind, were soon due in. She was silent and then she said something that no one, least of all my father, could have argued with. ‘Plans change.’”(Page 256 17-22) I understood her situation. She leaves because she needs time to get her mind together. Everyone does it, and sometimes may take a few years. Although she abandons her family, and with her husband practically going mad and we know it is selfish, I understand her need for a break. Susie's death plus family issues with her husband would probably cause a lot of stress. Even the way she handles it is not the best.
Third, Susie’s families cherish each other and take care of each other. As shown in the novel, “These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often to see things in a way that let me hold