Helpful Score: 1
This was deep, thought-provoking story told from the omnipresent viewpoint of a teenager, Susie Salmon.
Susie is in heaven because she was brutally raped and murdered by her neighbor, a viscious serial killer. From heaven, which resembles a child's playground, she is forced to watch her family and friends grieve, break up, and ultimately get on with their lives after many years. She watches the police investigation die due to lack of evidence, although her sister courageously risks capture by breaking into her neighbor's house to find clues. Oh, the killer ultimately dies in an accident, but, if I read it right, killed several other girls AFTER Susie.
Where is the justice for which I kept hoping. Heaven sounds more like hell to me because Susie could only observe, not help.
The writing style was interesting, but occassionally confusing because the individual stories from earth were divided into tiny segments that flowed together often paragraph to paragraph with little warning that the point-of-view was changing. The POV was Susie's, of course, the the stories from earth was told on their own, with Susie's occassional commentary and feelings.
Overall, the characters and plot was complex, deep, and human, the pace wa moderate, and the decriptions and imagry and symbolism drew you into the story. The theme was about greif, but ultimately about healing. It is not an easy book to read because of the theme, but I would recommend it to people who might like a different sort of human drama.
Susie is in heaven because she was brutally raped and murdered by her neighbor, a viscious serial killer. From heaven, which resembles a child's playground, she is forced to watch her family and friends grieve, break up, and ultimately get on with their lives after many years. She watches the police investigation die due to lack of evidence, although her sister courageously risks capture by breaking into her neighbor's house to find clues. Oh, the killer ultimately dies in an accident, but, if I read it right, killed several other girls AFTER Susie.
Where is the justice for which I kept hoping. Heaven sounds more like hell to me because Susie could only observe, not help.
The writing style was interesting, but occassionally confusing because the individual stories from earth were divided into tiny segments that flowed together often paragraph to paragraph with little warning that the point-of-view was changing. The POV was Susie's, of course, the the stories from earth was told on their own, with Susie's occassional commentary and feelings.
Overall, the characters and plot was complex, deep, and human, the pace wa moderate, and the decriptions and imagry and symbolism drew you into the story. The theme was about greif, but ultimately about healing. It is not an easy book to read because of the theme, but I would recommend it to people who might like a different sort of human drama.
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