I love, love, love it when books are made into movies. I hear a lot of people complaining that the movie never lives up to what they had pictured. For me, it's kinda like I get to see the choices a director has to make in the process of changing the written work into a series of images. I love to think about why a particular scene or thread was deleted and others made more prominent. I love to think about how seemingly small adaptations in the script can change the entire meaning or message of a story.
So, when I heard that The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold was coming out in theaters, I was thrilled. I had read this book when it first came out and have been passing it on to students ever since. I've had all kinds of female students who've absolutely loved the unique structure of this book. There's also a bit of a mystery in this book. The mystery is not who killed the main character, Susie, but whether or not anyone on Earth will ever figure out who her killer is.
This story takes place in the 1970's, a time when people were seemingly much more trusting of one another than they are now. No one living in Susie's neighborhood would have expected that a serial killer lived among them. Sure, they knew that the single guy who lived alone and made doll houses for a living was a little weird. So, when Susie disappeared no one (except Susie's Dad) looked to George Harvey as a suspect.
My hope for the movie is that it captures the beauty of Susie's heaven and that the father/ daughter relationship is developed and real-feeling. I love my father tremendously, and can't imagine what it would be like to be killed and watch him trying to solve my murder. I'm a little scared (mostly from the previews of this film) that the father will seem a little corny.
This movie comes out soon, so if you haven't read this book yet, you totally should. I've been rereading it and have been just as engaged as when I first read it several years ago. Even if the movie does not live up to the book, the book is still an intriguing, imaginative story. You won't regret reading it!
