The Lovely Bones
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Never found the body and Weird Switching Scene
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Simone
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rated it 4 stars
Jul 31, 2012 02:08PM
I was SOOOOO unsatisfied because they never did (and presumably will never) find the body!! It lingers with me… am I the only one?
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Yeah it really bugs me still and I was guessing that they would find the body but I guess that shows that not everything can have a satisfying end and it shows the reality of murder cases. But the one thing I wanted to be different was the way Mr.Harvey should have been punished. Getting killed was too nice in my opinion.
It bugged me too for a while but then I thought well do you really find the body ever time someone one dies? No. Sometimes people don't even know the person is dead they think they are missing. This is just the sad truth of life.
i couldnt even finish the book it was too upsetting. now i know that its better i didnt i would have been even more upset with the ending.
Probably one of the reasons why I hated this book so much!
I thought this book was amazing! Depressing but amazing.
I think... it was so right for me. Don't get me wrong, I alsoe wanted Susie's family to have her body and finally bury it in right way. But in real life it's not so common to find a body of murdered people. Susie get her revange ( remember icicle?), so ths '' body thing'' can be unrevealed for me.
I felt that this book actually helped me to understand the people who disappear in real life. A young teen in our area vanished over 3 years ago. No one has a single clue to where she went. I was very disturbed by this book but I found that there was comfort also. It has been 2 or 3 years since I read it but the story resonates. That makes a good book to me.
I really, really didn't like that Harvey went unpunished (though the icicle was some pretty cool Karma) nor did I like that her body was never found. However, the more time that passed after reading it, the more it grew on me. The thing is, it's realistic. We all want a happy ending but really, it just isn't that common- especially in a case like Susie's. Because of this, I think I actually like the book better than I would if it had had a happy ending; it would have seemed... flatter, somehow.
This whole book was disturbing. I think the body never being found rings true, as many missing/murdered people are never found. I wanted her to be found though, and I wanted Harvey to be caught and punished for what he did! That rings true as well though, as many are never caught.
Franknannie wrote: "This whole book was disturbing. I think the body never being found rings true, as many missing/murdered people are never found. I wanted her to be found though, and I wanted Harvey to be caught an..."I agree.... I wanted Harvey to rot away in jail....
Franknannie wrote: "This whole book was disturbing. I think the body never being found rings true, as many missing/murdered people are never found. I wanted her to be found though, and I wanted Harvey to be caught an..."Although a lot of bodies are not found (in reality) this book is fictional and the fact that Susie had the chance to come back to tell someone where her body was AND who the killer was. I would have wanted justice and I would have wanted my family to have closure, but Susie was too selfish to care.....all she wanted to do was get it on with her crush, so that part (to me) seemed totally unrealistic.
I love the concept of this book, about how the dead girl is telling her story, it's just a shame the way Sebold decided to write it. It COULD have been amazing!
I didn't even want to give this book 1 star, but 'apparently' it needs some kind of rating. lol
Roselinta wrote: "But the one thing I wanted to be different was the way Mr.Harvey should have been punished. Getting killed was too nice in my opinion."Would have been too predictable I guess.
Just my opinion here: It has been a while since I read this book but I too struggled with it. As others have said before me, I did not like that the body was never found and it was disturbing to me to see the family unravel because of this tragedy. Harvey should have been caught. I finished the book but there were many parts when I had to put it down. Susie's final resting place still sticks with me. What an awful way to go and to never be found. I sold this book at my last garage sale for 25 cents. I warned the buyer and I will not watch the movie. again. Just my opinion.
My biggest issue is the whole part where Susie switches places with the other girl and then uses her body to have sex with Ray. That was just disturbed. I really liked the book, but that bit was just WEIRD!
I saw the movie bfote I read the book and was mad at how the movie ended so I decided to read the book and bummer they end the same way I would think the police would have had the dump site searched at some point.
Gabrielle wrote: "My biggest issue is the whole part where Susie switches places with the other girl and then uses her body to have sex with Ray. That was just disturbed. I really liked the book, but that bit was ju..."I agree, it kinda ruined the end. Not being able to say goodbye should be a part of death, but she finds a loophole and does it anyway. Plus it's probably not true love at her age, just a school crush (even though she doesn't see it the same way). I could have gotten around it if they were star crossed lovers or something like that, otherwise no.
Totally agree with Gabrielle and Patrick. The "switch" scene was just silly. Up until that point I thought the concept of the book was fascinating and some of the writing quite poetic and profound. That whole scene came off like an adolescent teenie bopper magazine story. Not finding the body was for me part of the point of the book. Bodies are a shell or casing for the mind and spirit----essentially worthless. Susie was not lost because her body wasn't found. More frustrating to me, but still sound within the context of the book, was that the murderer was never publicly exposed. Still, with that idea, Seabold reminds us that evil walks among us and we don't even recognize it when it lives next door.
Melinda wrote: "Totally agree with Gabrielle and Patrick. The "switch" scene was just silly. Up until that point I thought the concept of the book was fascinating and some of the writing quite poetic and profound...."Very True!!
The "switch" scene was just silly"Agreed times 10000!
Not really does it bug me I am actually okay with it because I think it would upset them if they found out it was buried and was in a chest
Agree with the comments that the "switch" scene was completely wrong and I so wish it was cut out because it really mars the credibility of the universe the author created. It was really believable up until that point - that the living are influenced by the dead and are not even aware of it. For the life of me, I can't grasp what the author was trying to tell the reader with that scene. There is simply no "happy" resolution for a child that dies before her first kiss. As for the body not being found, this is a work of fiction not reportage and as such uses symbols. I took away from it that in the end, our bodies are swallowed up by the earth and we disappear. But the soul remains and eventually moves on and frees up both the living and the dead to experience whatever is next.
Well said Laurie. Once Susie was transformed from a spiritual influence to a supernatural invader of someone else's body the book's inherant concept was violated. I too will never understand her motive for doing so (seabold's or susie's).
Roselinta wrote: "Yeah it really bugs me still and I was guessing that they would find the body but I guess that shows that not everything can have a satisfying end and it shows the reality of murder cases. But the ..."I wasn't happy at all about the way the psycho was killed. It did leave an almost unfinished feel to the book. After all that the family went through it would have been good to have him caught and imprisoned.
Okay, I have to comment on the switched scene. Ew. Didn't like that part. It was just weird.
I just finished reading this book (have not seen the movie) and I agree, the switch part was weird. I have been rolling it around in my mind, trying to understand what the author was intending with that, and the only thing I can come up with is that perhaps Susie's complete heaven somehow needed her love for Ray to be fulfilled in that way (love-making)??? Her heaven was evolving all the time, growing wider and more interesting...I don't know. That doesn't explain Ruth's venture into Susie's heaven.
It was realistic that her body was never found but it irritated me as well. For the Body Switching scene, I thought the fact that she switched her body with Ray's friend was not only disturbing but the fact that she used it to have sex with him was the most stupid thing and selfish thing she could've done with the time she had. Did she go to her family to talk to them, say the proper goodbye she wasn't able to do? Did she fill in the missing pieces of her murder? No, she went to go have sex with this random high schooler who probably wont even remember her. THATS what she did with her time. Susie Salmon, you are an idiot.
see the bad thing is her sister did find out and had proof and she would've been the next victinm if her dad didnt insits on helping and she didn't ever tell her dad becuase she didn't want him to go threw crap s
If you read the book she did talk to her family on the phone and she only had a little time in the body and he did remember her and she didnt really help her father that much in the murder case and it was something he wouldve never had side from the fact she got raped but rue used her body to her full potential to
Simone wrote: "I was SOOOOO unsatisfied because they never did (and presumably will never) find the body!! It lingers with me… am I the only one?"I feel that it was a sacrifice that she couldve had one or the other this is my opinion and the only explination i had and i fell it was better this way becuase it makes you wonder why.
Kelli wrote: "i couldnt even finish the book it was too upsetting. now i know that its better i didnt i would have been even more upset with the ending."AGREED!! This is the only book I "quit"!
like putting robots into Jane Eyre HA HA HA HA HA
the book wasn't about the murder mystery or about finding Suzie's body. It was about how her family deals with the lost of her and how they try to move on. It's also about how Suzie releases the anger that her murderer gets away with it and letting go oof her family and moving on herself. Besides, Mr Harvey got what he deserved and the family did find out that he killed her.
This book was a ludicrous disappointment. The premise was intriguing, but the switch and what she did with it unraveled all sense that might be made of it. Clearly, the relationship with her father/his unwavering devotion to her was a crucial focus of the book and if Susie HAD to have a few more corporeal moments (stupid to start with) she should certainly have addressed HIS pain and not her own curiosity about growing up. It really devolved in the last third into clingy ghosts and dumb cops and the utter collapse of suspended disbelief. It's one thing for a body never to be found but quite another for a ghost to have a whole night to tell a believer where it is and not to bother (not to care about anybody); perhaps the point is that ghosts don't make good characters because they can't mature or develop? This little angel is not ready for big-girl heaven.
The sudden posession thing was really weird. But we shoulda seen that coming with her sudden ability out of nowhere to see ghosts of people. Doesn't make it any more annoying in a book with overly Christian undertones.
I agree with everyone the body switching scene was really weird, she should have used that to bring some peace to her family, or idk tell them where she is burried? she could have even left a note and then still went to see Ray if she really had too.
It is true many people that go missing sometimes they are not found or if they were killed the family never knew where the body of their relatives ended up. Body not being found happen in real life. The "switch" part was confusing and I did why it was there, but it had a reason in the storyline and has to be figured out by ourselves.
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