Grammar and language

We think the grammar and vocabulary of the book is simple and even though you don't understand every word  you can still figure out the meaning of the sentence/paragraph. (Well, most of the time :) )
An example of a complicated sentence "Despite her willed stomping and pitching in its street and byways, the city itself had very little to do with her interior life." You have to read this sentence a lot of times to understand what it means. It's a metaphor. She compares her feeling with New York, but her feelings have nothing to do with the city.
Because Susie is in heaven she knows how everyone on Earth feels and thinks, she comments their thoughts and feelings to the reader and also how she thinks about it. The result of that is that there's not so many long dialogues, but instead many short ones.
Example of an short dialogue: "Do you really want to honey? she asked him. Please, he said."
Susie is a teenager when she is telling this story, so the language is pretty fashioned and in a way teenagers speak (in the 70's).

Did the background information give us a better understanding of the book?

The website about Norristown didn't give us a better understanding. In the book, it's the 1970's so we imagine it being more old-fashioned.

On the website, the pictures of the neighborhood are bright and happy but in our heads we think the street where Susie lived is dark and sad. We think Norristown is a small village and that the houses look exactly the same. Susie says Mr. Harvey's and Susie's family's house are looking the same except the inside of the houses. Everyone has a garden and a garage.

Quote from the book when Grandma Lynn and Abigail are taking a walk in the neighbourhood - "The houses one after another, identical in structure. Only what my grandmother thought of as their accessories marked them as different."

We think that this story could be take place any time and the story (with someone being murdered) could happen anywhere but we think it's more likely it happens in a small town, where there's not too many people. It's more easy to commit a murder then.

Group discussion September 8th 2010.

How was the story evolved?

In the book, life goes on on earth. Everybody feel sad but they slowly start to fins good things in their lives. Lindsey gets a boyfriend, the granmother brings light to the house with her optimistic atitude and thoughts. Susie's friends Ruth and Ray find eachother. They talk every morning next to the cornfield where Susie was murded. Susie's father thinks that Mr. Harvey, their neighbour, is the murder of his daughter. Mr Harvey tells different names of his wife who died a couple of years ago and he is also acting wierd. But still the father doesn't have enough proofs. Many people, like Ray's mother and the rest of Susie's family, know about the father's suspicions.

SUSIE

She has been more used to life in heaven. She spends a lot of time watching what is happening on earth. She baerly mentions heaven. Susie is not jealous at the people on earth but it makes her sad seeing her family grieving. There's another girl in heaven named Holly. Susie and her become friends. Sometimes they have the same heaven, but when Susie thinks of her own life and is watching her family, Holly isn't there. She is in her own heaven then. Franny, an older woman in heaven, becomes like Susie's mother up there. She gives her advice and things that a mother can help a child with.

Our thoughts about heaven!

We picture us heaven like a big white place. The more you wish something, the more thing your heaven gets. And you can get anything you want, except the thing that has something to do with reality.

Discussion September 3rd

What were our expectations after reading the beginning of the story?

As the reader, you get thrown into the story from the first page. In the first chapter Susie tells you about when she gets murdered and also tells you about her afterlife in heaven, how it looks there and who she's there with. You get stuck from the beginning, she talks very calmly about the way she was murdered. That makes you more sad than frightened. 

The book's genre is drama.

About the way the story is told?

Look at the question above!

About the plot?

It's about a girl, named Susie. She tells you about when she was murdered, only fourteen years old. In the book you get to read about her afterlife in heaven and also about when she looks down on her family who tries to go on with their lives on earth.

About the main characters?

Susie: She is the main character in the story. She seems to be a very calm person, mature for her age. She long to High School, and has already planned how she's going to be popular there. 

Mr. Harvey:  He's Susie's murderer . He's lonely, got no family and have weird things going on. Maybe it's because of that he murders girls. 

Time and place?

The story begins on December 6st, 1973. She was murdered in the evening. Some parts of the story are taking place in heaven, where it's timeless. 

Over and out!

Nathalie, Alice, Elsa, Kathinka and Mårten!

Group discution September 1st

We just wanna start by saying: WE'RE SIMPLY THE BEST IGELGOTTSES IN THE WORLD!

Good, now we've cleared that out! :)

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