Serial killers often have a system, and preferred victim. Mr. Harvey seems to start of with young and then over time chose older and older women. Susie Salmon was fourteen when she was raped and murdered. The book, The Lovely Bones, is a story by the author, Alice Sebold, which tells the story of the family and friends of Susie and how they cope with the murder. This is a good story because the author creates an interesting plot that consists of the character developments and lack of them,  that occur after the tragic death of Susie, and how these changes pull each other together and push each other apart.

            Susie ascends into heaven stuck in her fourteen-year-old self-unable to age; the characteristic changes she experience are in her acceptance of parting from her family. In the beginning she is severely scarred from her traumatizing experience with Mr. Harvey and her inability to be with her family. “When the dead are done with the living, the living can go on to other things," Franny said. "What about the dead?" I asked. "Where do we go?”(145) Her family is moving on with their lives when Susie is in the beginning of hers. She tries to live through her younger sister Lindsey as a way of growing up and experiencing life. By living through her sister and sharing her story with the rest or Mr. Harvey’s victims she slowly heals and learns to let go of her life on earth, ““Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.” (186) Here she realizes not only her pain, but also the pain of her family and friends. She sees the darkness of her demise, and the darkness of many others.  It is a dark realization but puts her on the path to healing. It is not until her younger sister gets engaged that she is able to leave the living and spend all her time with the dead.

            Susie who was not the only one who could not let go of her death. Susie’s father, Jack, was more focused on his deceased child then the ones still living. He was broken and unable to fix himself, pain overwhelmed him,” 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.”(59) The poison on wrongly placed blame and grief consumed him thoughts and his days. This is something his wife, Abigail, could not live with. Abigal was a free spirit with ambitions and plans not available to her as a mother. So everyday she put on a mask and pretended to be a beautiful housewife, pretended to be living. She lived this way and then one of her children was brutally murdered. She lost not only Susie but her husband as well and she was incapable of living that way. Unable to hide how broken and twisted she was and so Abigail left in order to distance herself from the tragedy, but could not contain her loss, “If loss could be used as a measure of beauty in a woman, my mother had grown even more beautiful.”

             Both Lindsey and her little brother Buckley coped with Susie’s death and would go on to a life where pain was not necessarily the soul factor. Buckley became attached to his father, and Lindsey became strong, “Lindsey and Buckley had come to live their lives in direct proportion to what effect it would have on a fragile father.”(244) Buckley and Lindsey must support themselves; grow up fast in order to live.  By the end of the story Buckley is too young to fully understand who he will turn into. However, Lindsey finds her way to a future                    I watched my beautiful sister running . . . and I knew she was not running away from   or toward me. Like someone who has survived a gutshot, the wound had been closing, closing - braiding into a scar for eight long years.” (p. 242)She heals and her future is promising.

            This family creates and breaks bonds when Susie dies. The several different and interesting character developments display the different types of struggles all the characters face. The author displays how the stress caused some to snap, some to turn cold, and others to protect. It is powerful in its appeal to any family member because it captures the emotions of all of them.