Book Report 4

            Susie Salmon was a fourteen year old girl who was murdered on December 6^th, 1973.  She was the main character in the book I read, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.  She was murdered by George Harvey on snowy day in a cornfield.  She was walking home from school and she started talking to George Harvey.  Susie was just like most of the other girls where she lived.  She had mousy brown hair and she almost never missed any school.  She had a younger brother named Buckley and a younger sister named Lindsey.              

Susie knew that George Harvey was a strange man, but she still didn’t think that he would hurt or murder her.  He took her body and hid it, making sure that nobody suspected that he was the one that killed her.  The only part of her body that was found was an elbow.  He also left behind the hat that she was wearing and a piece of her charm bracelet that they were able to find.

When Susie died she went to heaven and in this story she tells us about what it’s like in heaven.  She had a difficult time adjusting to heaven.  At first she was very lonely and she missed her friends and family on earth. She learned that heaven was different for everybody.  She was able to watch what happened on earth and she missed being human and being able to talk to people and tell them what she saw and what was happening or going to happen.  Susie saw how hard it was of her family now that she was gone.  Her parents couldn’t believe that she was dead and they kept saying that she will come back someday.  People started seeing her everywhere.  They saw here in mirrors and windows.  Those were the people she haunted.  They sometimes would talk to Susie and even though they didn’t hear anything back they knew that she was listening.

In heaven she met people that she knew on earth like her grandfather.  She
also met new people like Holly and people like her that George Harvey murdered.  She realized that she wasn’t the only one he had murdered and then she didn’t feel so alone after that.

 When she was watching her family and friends on earth, she started seeing
everyone growing up.  Her sister was even going to get married and she was going to miss it.  Her brother was growing up a lot too and he was almost thirteen years old.  Seeing all this made her very sad, she wanted to be there and be a part of their lives.

At the end of the book she gets to see how everything turns out.  Her mother
comes back from California after her dad has a heart attack.  Her sister gets married and has a child.  She also gets to see what all of her friends do after high school and for some of her friends in college.  At the end of the book everyone is happy and they started talking about Susie again and the good things that they remember about her.

 I liked this book a lot.  I would recommend this book to people who like to read books about mysteries or murders.  In this book Susie Salmon is murdered and the only one that knows for sure who killed her was Susie.  Susie watches from heaven as her family and friends try to figure out what happened to her and if they will ever see her again.  The police don’t find very many clues.  Susie’s father knows that George Harvey was the one who killed his daughter, but he doesn’t know how to prove it.  Susie has to watch her father and sister find ways to prove to the police that George Harvey is the person who killed Susie.

After reading this book, I would have to give the book a nine out of ten.  I thought that this book was a lot different from most books because usually the main character is in most of what’s going on in the book, but in this book you read the story in a different point of view.  Susie could see everything.  She knew secrets that some people would never know about.  Even though she wasn’t there on earth she didn’t miss anything.

This book is a mystery because even though they know that Susie is dead they can’t figure out who murdered her.  At first the police think it was Ray Singh.  Ray had a crush on Susie and he wrote her a note on the day that she was murdered.  The police decided later that he was no
longer a suspect and they had no other clues to who it might have been.  Her father and sister think its George Harvey, but the police don’t think so.  When they figure out that George Harvey had murdered other people they almost know for sure that it was him, but by then George Harvey was gone and nobody knew where he went.  They eventually gave up and he never was caught.

The book really makes you think about your life and what it would be like if you didn’t get to be grow up and see what your life could have been, or how your family and friends would feel
if you weren’t around.  It makes you think about how everyone you meet and the things you do can change the direction of not only your life but the others around you as well.

       I read the book a Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks.  The main character in this story is Landon Carter.  Landon lives in Beaufort, North Carolina and goes to Beaufort high school.  He was the type of person who would go to church and not really pay attention and only went because his parents made him go.  He was a typical teenage boy who would  sometimes be disrespectful to the
reverend and find himself getting into trouble.  He wasn't the biggest fan of school so he didn't have very good grades either.

       His father was not dead and his parents were not divorced, but he didn’t get to see his father a lot.  His father was congressman and instead of having his whole family move to Washington, D.C  he just moved and he didn’t come back very often to visit.  Landon and his dad didn’t get along very well either.  When his father was home he would talk about how Landon should go to Harvard, but Landon wanted to go the University of North Carolina.   He struggled to talk to his father and never really told his father how he really felt about things.  Because of his lack of ability to communicate with his father, he ended up running for student body president to please his dad.  His father believed that he would get into Harvard for sure if he was the student body president.  Landon would sometimes thinks about what it would have been  like if his father would have been around more as a child.  Would they understand each other better?

            Landon changed a lot in this book. When he didn’t have a date for the dance he had to ask Jamie.  He never really talked to Jamie a lot and her dad was the reverend at the church he went too.  She was almost the opposite of him.  Jamie was the type of person who carried a bible and she was loved by all of the adults because she was so nice and never got into trouble.  After the dance she asked Landon to be in the play.  She didn’t tell him why, she just told him that this year had to be special.  He started to hang out with her more and then he started to fall in love with her.  He began to grow and change the more time he spent with Jamie.  He would read the bible with her and he would help get money to buy the orphan’s presents for Christmas.  When Jamie told him that she had leukemia he felt angry and sad at the same time.  He felt that there was something he could do to help her and he tried really hard to help her, but there was nothing he could do.

           

            I think that the theme of this book is that you should try new things and talk to people that you've never talked to before.  Landon would have never have talked to Jamie if he wouldn't have needed a date for the dance, but he actually started to like Jamie after that.  That's when Landon started to talk to Jamie a little bit more.  Jamie asked Landon if he could be in the play that she was in because they needed more people.  Landon couldn’t say no because he knew it would make Jamie sad if he did.  He didn’t really want to be in the play.  He wanted to hang out with his friends after school, but he still decided to be in it.

            After the play Landon helped Jamie collect all of the money that people donated so she could buy gifts for the orphans.  There wasn’t a lot of money so without telling Jamie he added money and that was the best Christmas that the orphans and Jamie ever had.  That’s when Landon started falling in love with Jamie.  He changed a lot because of Jamie.  He didn’t even care when his friends were making fun of him.  When Jamie got sick he would read the bible to her and he never used to read the bible before. 

            Just because Landon got to know Jamie better he started being a lot nicer.  He would do things that he would never do before like reading the bible, listening in church, and he started praying for Jamie when she got sick.  Jamie also helped Landon and his family come closer together.  Landon also started getting along with his father a lot better. 

            Ever since Landon started talking to Jamie his life started to change and he is a lot different now.  He never used talk to Jamie at all and he just though that she was really weird.  He never really got to know her until now and he realized that he really likes Jamie.  That is why I think that the theme of this book is that you should talk to people that you have never talked to before and try new things.