THE LOVELY BONES

I have read the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold three times now, and this says something because usually I don't re-read books (Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo would also be an exception) rather pass them onto the next person. In this book a young teenage girl gets murdered by a whack-job neighbor in a cave that apparently he made just such an occasion and where her body lies while her family looks for her. The book is entirely seen through her eyes as she narrates how her family copes with her missing, later found dead, and how her father gets suspicious of the neighbor.

This book has recently been made into a movie set to open in January 2010 in which Mark Whalberg plays the father of the teen. The critics have ripped it to shreds so much so I think I am going to wait (not to mention the commercial previews are so-so, nothing that screamed "I gotta see this!") and put it on my Netflix list when it hits DVD status.

The book reminds me of the poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye ~

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the star-shine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.