In recent days, I’ve been on a bit of a book-reading binge. I’m admittedly a bit of a book snob, but decided to give some more popular books a chance when I was browsing the Kindle store and found some bargains. And so it was this easing of my standards and clamoring for reading material that found me browsing the shelves at Goodwill (not that I’ve ever had anything against Goodwill, but I’m the type of person who usually walks into a bookstore or logs onto Amazon knowing exactly what I want, rather than choosing at random). On this particular jaunt, I found a hardback copy of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, sans dust cover, which was covered in what I could only guess were grease spots on the cover. I’d heard of it and had a very vague idea what the plot was about, and I decided to give it a chance. I’d actually thought of buying it on my Kindle, but for $2 (versus the $9.99 price tag for the Kindle version), I felt triumphant in having scored a deal. That I paid only $2 for it helped to diminish the abiding sense of shame I felt after having finished such an awful, awful book.
For those unawares, the book centers around 14 year-old Suzie Salmon (like the fish), who is raped and murdered by one of her neighbors in the 1973. Written from Suzie’s perspective, the book follows what happens to her family, friends, and her killer after she goes missing. You see, Suzie goes to heaven and is able to observe the goings-on, enter the thoughts, and even reveal herself (albeit very briefly) to those she knew. I don’t personally believe in heaven, but I don’t begrudge anyone his or her personal beliefs, so I made the concession that there is a heaven for the sake of the plot. That being said, the author’s particular concept of heaven bordered on juvenile. Sebold’s version of heaven is whatever each individual soul wanted it to be. In Suzie’s heaven, “there were no teachers in the school”, “we never had to go inside except for art class”, and it “had an ice cream shop where, when you asked for peppermint stick ice cream, no one ever said ‘It’s seasonal’”. She also describes packs of dogs roaming around (good dogs of course; maybe all good dogs really do go to heaven). I was surprised that there weren’t unicorns and rainbows and pennies falling from the sky as well.
For the most part though, the protagonist spends her time spying on Earth and trying to somehow lead her family, friends, or the police to her remains, which were sliced up Dexter-style, stuffed into a heavy safe, then dumped into a sinkhole that was commonly used as a burial ground for broken appliances. While she is mostly unsuccessful in her endeavors to help catch her killer, she does succeed in being creepy and spying on a bunch of people having sex, including her mother (who was nailing the detective that was investigating her daughter’s disappearance like the classy dame she is) and her sister. In Suzie’s heaven, she could be a creepy voyeur and never get caught.
Of all the characters in The Lovely Bones, Abigail Salmon is the least sympathetic. Instead of clinging to the family she has left after Suzie is gone, as previously mentioned, she has an affair with Detective Fenerman, then abandons her husband and remaining children and skips town to work in a vineyard, of all places. Apparently losing one child reminded her of the life she lost when she became a mother, so she decided the best course of action was to pretend she never was a mother. Abigail is just such a deep, brooding soul that the crushing realities of motherhood interfere with her ability to read Sartre, and so she had to flee.
As the book dragged on with little plot but Suzie continuing to be creepy and her mother continuing to be a selfish bitch, I kept asking myself why I was still reading it. The only answer I could come up with is that I’m a member of the book equivalent of the “Clean Plate Club”; once I’ve invested the time and energy into reading a book, I have to finish it, no matter how horrible it is (unless it’s The Great Gatsby; one of the few books I physically could not finish, no matter how hard I tried). I soldiered on through more overly sentimental codswallop and thin vestiges of plot until the very end, when Suzie’s dad had a heart attack, which of course made Suzie’s mom realize the mistake she made by abandoning her family eight years ago, and she rushes to be at Mr. Salmon’s bedside, and all is (mostly) forgiven. Meanwhile, Suzie manages to channel herself into the body of Ruth, a girl who happened to be in Suzie’s path as she left Earth, and so was endowed with the ever-useful power of seeing dead people. Some manner of Freaky Friday switcheroo occurred, and instead of using the brief time she had in Ruth’s body to help point her family in the direction of her remains, she chooses to screw Ruth’s friend Ray Singh, whom she’d had a crush on and had kissed before she died. Essentially, a 14 year-old girl used an adult woman’s body to have sex with her junior high crush, who was also an adult at this point. This begs the question: is it statutory rape if a man has sex with an adult body that’s inhabited with the spirit of a minor? The reader is also left with the conundrum of ferreting out who is creepier: Suzie for wanting a roll in the hay instead of giving her family some closure, or Ray for banging Ruth’s body while knowing that Suzie’s spirit was at the helm? It was at this point in the book that I wanted to throw it as hard and as far away as I could away from me, but I was at work in the break room, so I thought I might look like a crazy person if I started throwing books at random. In the end, no one finds out what became of Suzie’s body, the Salmons are a united front once more, and Suzie’s killer ends up meeting his fate after an icicle falls and sends him on his merry way into a ravine.
There. I’ve saved you the trouble of reading this unbelievably horrible book.
You’re welcome.
For those unawares, the book centers around 14 year-old Suzie Salmon (like the fish), who is raped and murdered by one of her neighbors in the 1973. Written from Suzie’s perspective, the book follows what happens to her family, friends, and her killer after she goes missing. You see, Suzie goes to heaven and is able to observe the goings-on, enter the thoughts, and even reveal herself (albeit very briefly) to those she knew. I don’t personally believe in heaven, but I don’t begrudge anyone his or her personal beliefs, so I made the concession that there is a heaven for the sake of the plot. That being said, the author’s particular concept of heaven bordered on juvenile. Sebold’s version of heaven is whatever each individual soul wanted it to be. In Suzie’s heaven, “there were no teachers in the school”, “we never had to go inside except for art class”, and it “had an ice cream shop where, when you asked for peppermint stick ice cream, no one ever said ‘It’s seasonal’”. She also describes packs of dogs roaming around (good dogs of course; maybe all good dogs really do go to heaven). I was surprised that there weren’t unicorns and rainbows and pennies falling from the sky as well.
For the most part though, the protagonist spends her time spying on Earth and trying to somehow lead her family, friends, or the police to her remains, which were sliced up Dexter-style, stuffed into a heavy safe, then dumped into a sinkhole that was commonly used as a burial ground for broken appliances. While she is mostly unsuccessful in her endeavors to help catch her killer, she does succeed in being creepy and spying on a bunch of people having sex, including her mother (who was nailing the detective that was investigating her daughter’s disappearance like the classy dame she is) and her sister. In Suzie’s heaven, she could be a creepy voyeur and never get caught.
Of all the characters in The Lovely Bones, Abigail Salmon is the least sympathetic. Instead of clinging to the family she has left after Suzie is gone, as previously mentioned, she has an affair with Detective Fenerman, then abandons her husband and remaining children and skips town to work in a vineyard, of all places. Apparently losing one child reminded her of the life she lost when she became a mother, so she decided the best course of action was to pretend she never was a mother. Abigail is just such a deep, brooding soul that the crushing realities of motherhood interfere with her ability to read Sartre, and so she had to flee.
As the book dragged on with little plot but Suzie continuing to be creepy and her mother continuing to be a selfish bitch, I kept asking myself why I was still reading it. The only answer I could come up with is that I’m a member of the book equivalent of the “Clean Plate Club”; once I’ve invested the time and energy into reading a book, I have to finish it, no matter how horrible it is (unless it’s The Great Gatsby; one of the few books I physically could not finish, no matter how hard I tried). I soldiered on through more overly sentimental codswallop and thin vestiges of plot until the very end, when Suzie’s dad had a heart attack, which of course made Suzie’s mom realize the mistake she made by abandoning her family eight years ago, and she rushes to be at Mr. Salmon’s bedside, and all is (mostly) forgiven. Meanwhile, Suzie manages to channel herself into the body of Ruth, a girl who happened to be in Suzie’s path as she left Earth, and so was endowed with the ever-useful power of seeing dead people. Some manner of Freaky Friday switcheroo occurred, and instead of using the brief time she had in Ruth’s body to help point her family in the direction of her remains, she chooses to screw Ruth’s friend Ray Singh, whom she’d had a crush on and had kissed before she died. Essentially, a 14 year-old girl used an adult woman’s body to have sex with her junior high crush, who was also an adult at this point. This begs the question: is it statutory rape if a man has sex with an adult body that’s inhabited with the spirit of a minor? The reader is also left with the conundrum of ferreting out who is creepier: Suzie for wanting a roll in the hay instead of giving her family some closure, or Ray for banging Ruth’s body while knowing that Suzie’s spirit was at the helm? It was at this point in the book that I wanted to throw it as hard and as far away as I could away from me, but I was at work in the break room, so I thought I might look like a crazy person if I started throwing books at random. In the end, no one finds out what became of Suzie’s body, the Salmons are a united front once more, and Suzie’s killer ends up meeting his fate after an icicle falls and sends him on his merry way into a ravine.
There. I’ve saved you the trouble of reading this unbelievably horrible book.
You’re welcome.
