The Lovely Bones Study Guide

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Lovely Bones is a novel which tells the story of Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl murdered in the early 1970s. After her death, Susie watches her loved ones cope with their loss from Heaven, witnessing the detectives try and fail to discover her murderer, her parents marriage fall apart, and her siblings and classmates grow up and move on. Though Susie will never be able to rejoin the living, watching over them enables her, and those she left behind, to eventually find peace.

Harvey remembers shoplifting with his mother. It was a game they used to play. He also remembers being taught to take valuables from the dead. She teaches him being a child or a woman are the two worst things to be.

He collects the charms he has collected from his victims. He hides his valuables in a hole in the basement and calls the police, telling them his house has been broken into. He plans to leave.

Jack calls the police as well, but learns the police are already at Harvey’s house. Harvey volunteers to allow the police to search his home. The police tell him Lindsey found the drawing. He tells police he sketched it after Susie’s death, in an attempt to solve the murder. The police apologize to him and he agrees to not press charges against Lindsey.

Susie watches her family fall apart as a result of the break-in. Her mother drops Buckley at a play area and calls Len to meet her at the mall. She consummates her relationship with Len as Harvey packs his belongings at home. Harvey leaves.

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