Posted on January 31, 2010 by Meg

A book review of The Lovely Bones fromSimpson’s Paradox, just in time for the movie:

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, begins by introducing the protagonist, Susie Salmon (like the fish, she reminds us), who is dead, murdered by a neighbor who’s made smalltalk with her parents a few times. As her community searches for her killer, and finally come to terms with her death, Susie watches from heaven.

Heaven, in The Lovely Bones, is a non-religious afterlife where everything is just as you want. Susie encounters a heavenly intake counselor, a former non-profit caseworker whose heaven is working for people who thank and appreciate her, and a heavenly roommate, a Vietnamese girl whose heaven includes speaking accentless English and having an American name. Unfortunately for me, Susie’s own heaven was the least appealing one described, involving a townful of dogs (I think this proves I have no heart but I can’t really get into all the maintenance required for slobber machines), but the details here, like the 14-year-old reading of Seventeen or the smells she most loved on earth, make any reader imagine their own heaven, without harps and angels, but perhaps the smell of new plastic and endless brand-new scenes in the Harry Potter movies. At least for me.

Via Simpson’s Paradox » The Lovely Bones