The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold pages 5 to 40

Summary:
In the beginning of the novel, there's a young girl Susie Salmon. Susie was only 14 years old when she was raped and killed. The tragedy began when young Susie was on her usual walk home from school. She went through the cornfield to get home. In the cornfield she met her neighbor Mr. Harvey and he began to talk to Susie. He invited her back to his house. Considering that her parents where friends with Mr. Harvey she didn’t see any harm going to his house. He built some kind of play house for the children and that’s where he brought Susie. That’s when Susie began to feel uncomfortable when he was being sweet then sexual. Then Susie tried to fight back when he attempted to rape her but she wasn’t strong enough against him. After he raped her Susie knew he was going to kill her and that’s exactly what happened.
Once the police began to investigate the situation, they found was sure Susie was murdered when they found her elbow. Her parents where heartbroken and devastated. Her older sister Lindsey acted as though she didn’t even care that her younger sister had passed away. Her family and the detectives tried really hard to figure out who her murderer is and how she dies. As for Susie, she is in heaven looking upon her family and friends she wants to help her family figure out who killed her.
Quote:
“It was an elbow. The Gilberts’ dig found it” (Sebold 24).
Reactions:
This is when the Salmon family received the evidence that their precious daughter was killed because they found her elbow. When her older Lindsey found out that they found an elbow she threw up with disgust. How and why would someone cut up her body? When her family found out she was dead that all had a moment of silence and everyone had time to themselves to cry about the situation.