Before reading this book I thought it was going to be horrible. The plot sounds some what gruesome, a young girl narrator her rape and death at the hands of a sexual predator, which is also one of her neighbors. From heaven she watches her family fall apart after her death, and then eventually come back together. Alice Sebold has a wonderful way of writing her book to the point where you have to know …showed first 75 words of 287 total…

…showed last 75 words of 287 total…book there are many symbols that people will think represent themselves and well as the characters Flowers are often seen in the novel, and unsurprisingly represent the deads continued presence in the lives of the living. Susie's favorite flower, we learn, is the daffodil, and accordingly they are left on the site of her death at its anniversary. Later, she and her fellow dead make Buckley's garden come up with a wild mix of geraniums.