The Lovely Bones

Reading The Lovely Bones gives insight into mental illness/psychological problems because George Harvey is a very troubled man. There is a no way a mentally healthy person would ever commit the crimes that he did. Sebold clues us into his struggles by revealing bits of his past, with a klepto mother and abusive father. I didn't really view him as a mentally ill character in the sense of having a disease such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. I saw him more as someone who couldn't cope with difficulties in life as well as others, therefore triggering a lot of impulses and uncontrollable behavior. I believe that the character of George Harvey, if raised in a different setting, would not have become the terrible person that he did. Before reading this, I never thought or really knew anything about serial killers. I mean I'm a big fan of scary movies, and they tend to feature completely exaggerated serial killers in them, but I never connected that to real life because of the theatrics and drama that is used in movies. But maybe these characters are more real than I thought, they might not be stalking people in the woods or using chainsaws, but at the end of the day there are real people out there who have killed many others. After reading this book, that's when I realized they are more alike the typical person than expected. They make a point to blend in, not draw any attention to themselves, and even gain a little sympathy so that people will think 'oh there is no way they are the criminal'. The scariest part is that they can actually be extremely intelligent and skilled at manipulating others emotions and covering their tracks, so no one will ever know. I'm not quite sure what can be done to reach out to people before they choose to murder someone. Unless someone just comes out and says their intentions, it can never be guessed what would set an individual off. Everybody has triggers that sends them over the edge, and while more typically that 'edge' causes them to self-harm (alcohol, drugs, etc.) apparently it drives some to kill. Essentially I think anybody in a high-risk situation (meaning a lot of family issues, victim of a traumatic experience, or anything else) should just be supported and provided with help so that there problems don't spiral into something that creates a George Harvey. Reading this book doesn't really change what I believe about the human condition. It doesn't make me lose hope in humanity or lose trust. People can experience plenty of hardship and struggle and still most will not turn out how George Harvey did. As I said before, I think it is more of an underlying personality flaw, an inability to cope, that killers have. They could be perfectly fine but once triggered turn into a vicious, violent person. The one last point I would like to make about this book is that while reading it, I gradually got a more eerie, chilling feeling from it and I wondered why the story sounded so familiar. Then I remembered something that occurred in a town just north of me. In 2009, a 5-year-old girl was kidnapped from the front lawn of her apartment and later, her body was found under some concrete on the bank of the River Raisin, with dirt in her lungs. It made reading this book much more emotional realizing that a tragic fictional read could be related to something that happened so close by. It also was a scary reminder that killers really do exist in the world, and sometimes not so far away.