It starts off as a normal day with the Salmon family, when Susie Salmon, who is a normal teenage girl, gets murdered

The Lovely Bones takes the story of a teenage girl’s murder and shows its readers the hardships that a family would go through when losing a loved one, and what the person who was murdered experiences. The book shows its readers that the murder victim is the only one who knows the truth. People say “the truth is what sets you free” and Susie Salmon reveals the truth of whom her murderer is in order for her spirit to be set free.

Throughout the book Susie Salmon is stuck on whether to stay and watch her family go on living their lives or to leave them and go on to her afterlife.

The Lovely Bones explores how much a father could love his child. Throughout the book the reader experiences the father’s emotions from the findings of his dead daughter’s  corpse to the conclusion of whom is responsible. The book explains how the father has to tell his youngest child, the son, that his older sister won’t be coming home.

The book also explains how Susie’s sister feels. Susie’s sister is a teenage girl herself who is stuck in the motions of teenage love and teenage life. The action with her sister begins when she gets a hint from Susie’s spirit about who her murderer is and Susie’s sister begins to unravel a horrible secret that she herself isn’t ready to face.

As for Susie’s mother, she finds herself questioning everything she’s done and decides to do what is best for her. Susie’s mother lost hope in ever finding out the truth of her young daughter’s death and who is responsible.

“The book itself is very creative and could attract readers of all ages,” said Olivia Meier, sophomore at HHS.

Everybody has unique ways of dealing with the death of a loved one.  The Lovely Bones exemplifies a few ways how death is handled by its many characters.

From cover-to-cover, The Lovely Bones is one story that gets its readers thinking and makes the reader try to understand one family’s worst nightmare that unfortunately came true for the Salmon’s.