The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

This is one of the first books I read this summer. I was attracted to it because I am always drawn to things that are above and beyond the ordinary. The central issue of this book is death, untimely and unjust death. Death is a force far larger than life and its main victims are those that remain living. We live our lives fearing personal injury and fearing the loss of our loved ones. And yet few among us spend much time visualizing what happens after we draw our last breath. I enjoyed seeing Sebold's view of the afterlife, how she imagines heaven, or rather how she fails to imagine it at all by merely positing that we all experience a different kind of heaven. What struck me most is the extent to which she sees death as intertwined with life, the dead pining over the living and the living obsessing over the dead. This novel is a must-read for anyone who enjoys stepping outside of reality as we experience it. Sebold took me through a journey that ignited anger, joy and pain and brought my imagination and curiosity back to life. What really lies on the other side of that last breath?