I finally borrowed this book from a friend at work.
I don’t understand why it’s such a huge success. I found it bittersweet, but I wasn’t swept away by the story. Perhaps it’s because I have children around Susie’s age…I tended to keep the plot at arm’s length, since it was such a disturbing story.
I found it interesting that the author’s concept of heaven is not one of harps and angels, but one where the dead can cry and miss and regret, just like the living do.
I’m glad Susie finally got Harvey at the end, but sad that her family would never find her body, although the end hinted at the possibility.
Was Ruth hit by Harvey’s car? Or did she just see his other murder victims in his car and leave for a while?
I also thought the police fell down in their investigation. Especially when Lindsay found the page in his notebook, the one with the drawing of his underground hole. Was it because the lead detective. Fenterman, was off with Susie’s mother at the mall that they missed that connection, and bought Harvey’s story?
It was an okay book, but not one I’m apt to read again. What did you guys think?
I read this about a year ago, so I may have forgotten some details. I really liked it.
I loved the author’s interpretation of Heaven, and I loved the bit with the dog, how she saw him a few seconds before the dog saw her… he was racing across the field, right?
The part where she described being killed was quite disturbing, since I have a daughter the same age as Susie. She was 14 when I read it, just turned 15 last month. Susie was 14, right?
I thought it did hint at the possibility that they would find her body one day, and with the advances in forensics, they would be able to positively ID it as hers.
I found that I had to put the book down several times during the death, and some parts after it. I did think that the second half of the book was really disappointing. Not surprising, since the first 150 pages are so good. I had one minor quibble with a major plot twist: in the 1970s (and even into the mid 80s), you were allowed to smoke in most of the rooms in hospitals.
I found it wonderfully well-written and an amazingly original story; also, horrifyingly depressing. It made me think: “People really do this. They do it over and over and never get caught. Every time you walk through a new mall or subdivision (or by a ditch/woods) you could be walking over/by the bones of murdered girls.” The part where the guy almost gets caught (I think there were a couple) and then doesn’t were heartbreaking. I appreciate that he gets it in the end (and relieved that his next victim would be spared) but the fact that he would never be brought to justice and the bodies of his other victims would most likely never be found really frustrated me. (See above quote from my brain.)
The only part I didn’t like was when she took over the other gal’s body to have a sexual experience or whatever. (I think I’m remembering that right.) That was pure cheese to me and sorta took away from the seriousness and high standards already set in the story. Other than that a fantastic read.
I enjoyed the book, though I thought the ending was a little bit of a letdown (the whole icicle bit). Lucky, on the other hand, the author’s account of being raped as a college student and her experiences with the legal system, therapy, etc., should be required reading for everyone, male and female. It manages to be both funny and terrifying. Read it.
What really got me was the breakup of her parents but the return of her mom (was it her mom?) when her dad was ill.
I’ve heard that many couples do not survive the loss of a child. I can’t imagine going through all that pain, and then also losing your life partner as a result. It was so freaking bittersweet when her mom came back. I had to stop reading it because I couldn’t hold back the tears.
I remember some parts of the book really well (the scene where she died of course)… and the scene where she took over the girl’s body which I agree was a little out of place.
I also think they were filling in the sinkhole.
As for the concept of heaven, I thought it was pretty interesting, the way it was so healing, and the dead had some free will to created their own heaven.
I just picked it up tonight, and read it in one sitting. I can’t decide whether I liked it or not, but I don’t imagine that I’ll be forgetting it soon.
My barely-teenage daughter wants to read it. I think I’ll steer her toward The Dollmaker instead.
I found it a stupid book. Heaven without God? And a heaven where everyone is preoccupied with goings on back on earth?
I think it was successful, in large part, because it had a vagued up, ostensibly feel good version of heaven that apparently had considerable appeal to many folk. And the risque factor that folks could get away with reading “legitimate” fiction involving child rape/murder. It was a “trick” book - the hook being that it was written from the point of view of a dead murdered child. Nothing more.
What astounded me was the number of folk who derived comfort from what this work of fiction had to say about an afterlife. Sheesh!
This godless heathen succeeded only in identifying yet another afterlife he is glad he will have nothing to do with.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. God was no more obviously present in Susie’s heaven than God seems to be in real life, but there is no reason to think that Susie’s heaven was the be all and end all of the afterlife. Her grandfather’s visit to her, and her intake counselor, both do more than hint that when Susie is ready to move on, she will do so, which could easily be interpreted as moving more fully into the presence of God. The fact was that Susie was immature when she was killed, and had quite a bit of growing up to do. Her emotional outlook had her incapable of leaving earth and her family behind, though by the end, she was much more ready for whatever comes next.
That said, I thought the ending was utterly stupid and cheapened the journey taken by all the characters during the book. Susie watches and pines for her family, actually manages to defy all laws of death to “live” in Ruth for a short time… and she uses that time to HAVE SEX? And SLEEP!!! Gah! I was so deeply disappointed by that. How about contacting her family (especially since it was clear that her father would have been receptive)? How about showing them where her body was? How about vengeance or justice or anything whatsoever to do with her killer? Aggravating beyond belief.
My thoughts exactly! I was so annoyed that she didn’t tell someone where the murdered was! It ruined the whole book for me. Now no one will ever know where this guy is and they’ll always assume he’s out there somewhere. I suppose if the police found his body in a timely manner and were able to identify it they’d find out, but she could have been a little more proactive in the helping department.
P.S. Don’t read this book on your honeymoon cruise. It puts a damper on things. What was I thinking???
The book left me with one big, gigantic meh. It should have ended long before it did, as the end didn’t really serve any purpose.
I was kind of disappointed that Harvey got it at all in the end. It would have been much creepier if he remained mint jelly (on the lam**) and never got caught. It seemed to me that Sebold was unwilling to let the monster go and focus on the family problems without giving the reader a nice “murderer escapes for a while and then meets final justice” story to give the audience the warm fuzzies.
What bothered me about her concept of heaven was that it wasn’t that different from many authors’. This wouldn’t have been that bad a thing, except that the readers of this book made it seem like it was a strikingly original portrayal of the afterlife, which it ain’t. Read Jonathan Carroll if you want original.
I was more invested in Lindsay’s (that was her sister’s name, yeah?) life than in anyone else’s. Lindsay got to live the life that Susie didn’t, and that’s what made that contrast interesting. I really didn’t understand why we kept up so much with Ruth and Ray, except for the “goin’ back to the world to knock some boots” bit which bugged the bejesus out of me. I thought the whole point of her early death was that she couldn’t grow up. That’s what made the story tragic, and yet that’s what was betrayed by her return to the earth. Of course, now that I think about it, maybe it was supposed to be creepy, with Harvey sexualizing her at a young age, and then Susie acting with that sexualization with Ray. Now that would have been worthwhile, but there wasn’t really any indication that Sebold was going that direction.
Overall, it seemed like the book was trying to be tragic and failing. It used too many hackneyed, cliche devices (oooh! The main character’s killed right at the beginning! Never seen that before!) that were, bizarrely, after the book’s release, heralded as original.