Independent Reading Log #5

10/30/12

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Pages 209-328 (the end of book)

1. Summary of what I read:  In this final passage of The Lovely Bones a lot of things occur. Abigail, Susie’s mom, leaves the family and moves to California leaving Jack to take care of everything. After this happens, Susie’s grandma comes to stay and help out at the house. She ends up helping a lot and they all take it as a blessing that she is there. Jack is still holding onto Susie which compromises his relationship with Buckley, Susie’s younger brother. When Buckley finally confronts his father about their relationship, Jack gets so worked up that he has a heart attack. Abigail gets the news in California and decides that she needs to come home and check on Jack since it is so serious. She has been gone for so long that she has ruined her relationship with Buckley almost completely and her relationship with Lindsey is extremely severed. Though her relationships with her children aren't in any way the same as they were, when she sees Jack again it is very similar to the way it use to be. While Abigail was gone Jack fell in love with her all over again and he is extremely happy when she comes back. Also in this passage, Lindsey has graduated from college and her high school sweetheart and her end up getting engaged. Susie looks down on this relationship and longs for her could-have-been relationship with Ray. After this and extraordinary thing happens and Susie actually comes back down to Earth. It is almost as if she trades places with Ruth and finally gets to live out her fantasy with Ray. Ray has always felt her beside him and when this transition occurs he recognizes her in Ruth’s body. They both cherish this time together and are sad to see it come to an end. In the final pages of the book, it describes Mr. Harvey’s death. He was just about to murder another girl when an icicle fell from a roof and kills him. After this and the fact that Susie’s family has reunited, the book tells of how Susie’s family has final come to turns with her passing and has begun to move on. They will never forget her but they are now allowing themselves to be happy again and move on together.

2. Important quote from the text: “They kept sharing when they felt me. Being together, thinking and talking about the dead, became a perfectly normal part of their life” (Sebold 324-325). I think that this is an important quote because it shows how Susie’s family finally is able to move on after her passing. Until this point in the book, they all are having a really hard time coming to terms with her death. They all had slightly moved on, but they all still held onto her so much that they couldn’t move on with their daily lives. This quote is after the family has been reconnected and it tells of how they are slowly allowing themselves to move on finally and heal.

3. Connections to the text: When Abigail came home from California to see Jack when he was in the hospital, she was not welcomed by her children at all. I can understand why the children would act that way. Abigail left them at the time when they needed her most and missed more than half a decade of their lives. I’m sure that Lindsey and Buckley were feeling extremely hurt and unwanted. I can understand what the children were feeling and I don’t think that the mom deserved to be treated by them any better.