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Lovely Bones Analysis

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Imagine having dreams, aspirations, goals, and hopes for yourself and the people around you, but then having it all taken away. Imagine being a young adult and having to find a way to cope with this while being lost in the in-between. Imagine watching your family struggle, yet you are on the sidelines, unable to help. This is a especially so in The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. The story follows the protagonist, Susie, who was raped and murdered by her neighbour. She goes to heaven and watches her family grow up without her. Her death sends a shock to her family and friends; some taking the news easily, others having a harder time. Susie experiences several key moments of realization that assists with her eventually coming of age, such as coping with the fact that she is dead, watching her family suffer without her, and finally finding a way to reach her own happiness and moulding her own path.
Susie lives in a world where she is beyond life and must quickly come to the realization that she is no longer amongst the living and she must cope with this fact. “‘People grow up by living,’ I said to Franny. ‘I want to live.’ ‘That’s out,’ she said to me. ‘Can we at least watch the living?’ ‘You already do.’” (Sebold 19) She wants to have the opportunity to grow up like a normal girl, yet she cannot because she is dead. Susie is not able to detach herself from her previous life. She misses her family to the extent where she cannot purely accept her death. “‘When the dead are

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