Character Letter (Character's Perspective) April 30, 2009

Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The book I am reading is titled Lovely Bones and it is written by Alice Sebold. The novel Lovely Bones is about the murder of Susie Salmon, who is a fourteen year-old girl living in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Susie is walking home from school one day when a neighbor, named Mr. Harvey, lures Susie into his dugout saying that he’s going to show her something that he had built for her. When Susie gets in the dugout, Mr. Harvey asks Susie if she has boyfriend, Susie says that she does not. Then Mr. Harvey knocks her to the ground and begins to rape her after stuffing her hat into her mouth. After he rapes her, Mr. Harvey asks Susie if she loves him and then he pulls out a knife and stabs her to death. After she dies, Susie goes to live in her version of heaven, which looks like her old hometown and high school. In heaven, Susie meets her roommate and her counselor, who helps Susie adjust to her life in heaven. Susie’s body is never found, but the police find Susie’s hat and her elbow in the cornfield near Susie’s house. Police also find Susie’s books and her notes, which includes a love letter from Ray Singh. Police suspect Ray is the murderer but then figure out that he couldn’t have killed Susie. Mr. Harvey then takes Susie’s dismembered body back to his house (except for the elbow that he lost) and stuffs it into a safe and throws the safe into a sinkhole. We find out that Susie is not the only person that Mr. Harvey has killed. Mr. Harvey keeps Susie’s charm bracelet but later decides to throw it into a field where a lake is going be built. He does keep a charm that Susie had of a Pennsylvania Keystone. Susie’s father then sees Mr. Harvey building a tent and goes to help and to ask if he knows anything about Susie and Mr. Harvey’s weird responses makes Mr. Salmon think that Mr. Harvey killed Susie. Mr. Salmon then hires detective Fenerman to solve Susie’s murder and tells Fenerman that he believes Mr. Harvey killed Susie. Fenerman then begins to question Harvey and Harvey tells Fenerman that he is building a tent to honor his dead wife Leah. When Fenerman tells this to Mr. Salmon, Mr. Salmon remembers Mr. Harvey telling him that his dead wife was named Sophia. Mr. Salmon is now positive that Mr. Harvey killed Susie.
Susie’s physically appearance was like most missing girls from the seventies, she was a “white [girl] with mousy brown hair” (pg. 1). She was the oldest of the Salmon children and was beginning to look less and less like a child. Just before she was murdered by Mr. Harvey she commented on her looks by saying “[she]’d had older men look at [her] that way since [she]’d lost [her] baby fat, but they usually didn’t lose their marbles over [her] when [she] was wearing her royal-blue parka and yellow elephant bell-bottoms” (p. 8). Susie is also a cute girl, which we learn when Mr. Harvey says “you are very pretty” (p. 11) to Susie before he rapes and kills her.
Susie’s personality was one that was not very street smart but she was very compassionate. When Susie is being lured into Mr. Harvey’s dugout before she is killed, Mr. Harvey makes a comment that illustrates how Susie is not very street smart when he says “you should be more observant Susie” (p. 8). This quote shows us that Susie is not very street smart because she is not observant to the things around her. Susie’s compassion could be seen when Susie says she is not supposed to like Ray Singh because everyone though he looked like a freak but she like him anyway because he was “nice and smart and helped [her] cheat on [her] algebra exam” (p. 13).
These personality traits are important to the story for many reasons. Most importantly, if Susie was street smart then she would have never been killed by Mr. Harvey because she would have not gone with Mr. Harvey into the dugout by herself. If Susie was never killed by Mr. Harvey then there would be no story. It is also important to the story that Susie is compassionate and caring, I think, because it helps the reader feel really sorry for her and want her murderer to go to jail. If Susie was a horrible person then we wouldn’t really care whether she got murdered or not.
I like this character because she is powerful and trying to solve her own murder, which I think is really inspiring. I also like this character because she loves her family and I love my family and I can totally relate to this character for this reason. I dislike this character because she was not smart enough to figure out that Mr. Harvey was a total weirdo who was trying to kill or molest her. It drives me crazy to think that she was so stupid to not realize that she was getting herself into a dangerous situation.

Analiza Zungri (8th grade)


Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Dear Book Club,
The book I have currently finished is titled, Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson. It has 278 pages. Wintergirls is about eighteen year old Lia, who loses her friend to anorexia and is battling the same disorder.
Hello, my name is Lia and I weigh 99 pounds. Me and my friend Cassie made a pact when we were younger to be the skinniest girls alive. So far I’m winning. People call me anorexic, but I never call myself that. I know by heart the calories of everyday food and I try to stay empty as long as I can without my parents finding out. Living with my father, stepmother and stepsister, doing this is easy. I don’t purge like Cassie did, but I exercise and eat very little. I don’t really have a description of my features, except for my height, which is short. I can be very self critical at times, as I edit my thoughts with crossed out lines and sentences. As in this paragraph on page 27; “ The air at the gas station is heavy with diesel and the smell of rancid deep-fryer fat from McDonalds next door. Five days ago I weighed 101.30 pounds. I had to eat at Thanksgiving (vultures all around the table), but since then it’s been mostly water and rice cakes. I am so hungry that I could gnaw off my right hand. I stick three pieces of gum in my mouth, throw out Emma’s potato chips, and fill the tank. I am disgusting.” My parents are unsupportive. They don’t understand that I’m strong, not dying. They say they want to help me, but they can’t do that if their looking in the other direction. Cassie haunts me at night, calling me her wintergirl, saying we're going to be together for New Years. I weigh 95 pounds. I want 85.
Another one of my characteristics is that I am sometimes guilty about “ being strong” and hurting people who try to help me, like I did with Emma. Page 226 “ The bathroom door swings open. Emma sees the blood painting my skin and the red rivers carved on my body. Emma sees the wet knife, silver and bone. The screams of my little sister shatter mirrors.” I obsess over my weight constantly. Ever since I was taken to New Seasons, my weight has been monitored by Jennifer. I hide coins in my bathrobe pockets during weight- ins, I lie out of habit, and my thoughts get more and more destructive as time goes by. In the end, I have to make a choice. To become thinner until I dissolve to nothing? Or to accept people’s help, even though I might not want it.
This book was very hard for me to read. Liaʼs not a character that makes you want to save her, at least not for me, but she’s a very real person, and the sentences are like poetry. This book is NOT for people who love happy ever-afters. Although Lia starts to make a recovery, you don’t exactly know if it’s for keeps. This book was one of the best, and I recommend it to all.

Amariah Walton (8th grade)


The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Dear Book Club,
I just finished reading a ninety-page book titled The Metamorphosis, a novel by Franz Kafka. The book is about a young, traveling salesman named Gregor Samsa. He hates his job but continues it because he provides the only source of income for his family. However, one day when Gregor awakes, he finds himself transformed into an insect.
Before Gregor was transformed he was a fit salesman; he had to be for how much traveling he did. However, after he became a bug, he became a hungrier, dirty, cockroach. His body is brown with a hard shell on his back and a soft belly with six little legs. As soon as Gregor is transformed, he is very apprehensive. Without his income his family will all have to get jobs and might not be able to support each other. He is also worried what his family might do when they see his current status. Later he becomes more confident. In the beginning Gregor is almost unable to move because he cannot figure out how to move his body together. But after a little time he is able to move his body and even learns to crawl on walls and fit in smaller spaces and becomes more confident with his body and skills; however, when he tries to help his family he usually just makes things worse.
I like Gregor very much. I find him very honorable and nice. I feel bad for him later in the book as his father and his relationship declines. This book is very unusual because the climax comes very early in the book. It is a great book that has a very deep meaning. You can see a lot of Franz Kafka in this book. It is a must read, my only complaint is that it was so short. I recommend it to all.

Zane Christenson (9th grade)


The Alchemist by Paulo Coelo
Dear Book Club
The book I’m reading is called The Alchemist by Paulo Coelo. It is about a shepherd boy named Santiago (but the author just calls him the boy). The boy gives up being a shepherd to go on a search for treasure. On the way he meets people that give him clues about where his treasure is. He then goes to Egypt and meets the alchemist, but that’s as far as I've gotten.
He is a young man in his twenty’s he is physically fit and handsome. His personality is adventurous, intelligent, and good hearted. He gave up becoming a priest to be a shepherd boy so he could travel and see the world. This shows his love for adventure. He likes to read and he has a curious mind. This shows his intelligence. He helps people by warning then of a vision he had that they were going to be attacked. This shows his good heartedness. All of these characteristics motivate him to search for treasure and find his personal legend. I like that he is adventures.

Griffin Lounsbury (9th grade)