"The Lovely Bones" is a hauntingly beautiful novel that keeps you
             wanting to read more. The main themes in "The Lovely Bones," are death, longing, and
             the Salmon family's long journey through grief.
             Death plays a large role in this story because Susie Salmon, a fourteen year
             old high school student, is brutally raped and killed while walking home from school one
             day. Mr. Harvey, her friendly, slightly odd next door neighbor, is the man who killed her.
             He enjoys killing things, and so as to avoid killing humans, he starts off by killing small
             animals, such as birds and mice, "taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child." He
             then advances onto dogs and cats, and finishes off with humans. Susie is only one of his
             many victims, as he has killed a wide range of women- from six year olds to fifty year
             olds. When questioned by the police, Mr. Harvey says he is widower to a woman named
             Leah. Later on, he says his wife's name was Sophie. Whatever his latest victim's name
             is, that is the name he uses when people ask him what his wife's name was. He does
             this to enjoy and prolong what it felt to kill that particular person.
             Longing is one of the main themes in this novel because both Susie and her
             family desperately long for each other. As Susie watches her family, friends, and
             community from heaven, she can't help but want to be down there with them. All
             she can do is observe, while her family falls apart in her absence. She misses them
             terribly, and shares quite a few flashbacks from when she was alive. "Two weeks before
             my death, I left the house later than usual, and by the time I reached the school, the
             blacktop circle where the school buses usually hovered was empty." At times Susie feels
             ...