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dynamic verbs 'run', 'bursts of fitness' + the spatial deixis of 'past the living room' highlights rUTH'S DESIRE TO KEEP TRYING TO REVEAL SECRETS/THE TRUTH + parallels her drive in New York looking in highrises and in stairwells - links to violence against women happening everywhere

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Ruth longs for heaven, is fascinated with the death.

Susie longs for earth, is fascinated with her family on earth

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She’s a feminist icon within the novel, yet the fact that she doesn’t ultimately have much choice could be a comment on how women do not fully have control and are still oppressed just in a different way.

The gothic calls for a damsel in distress, in this case arguably Susie, with a man to save her. Given that Ruth is a woman, seabold could be commenting on the progress society is making

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There’s an element of tragedy surrounding the character of Ruth. Through susie’s expression she has been devoid of chance from the very beginning. Being touched by susie wasn’t premeditated, and when Susie entered her body she wasn’t given chance to protest.
She’s an outcast and lives in the shadows of society but after susie’s death she becomes fixated on following down that path - perhaps because she thinks it’s the one way she can lead to justice. Ultimately, her whole life becomes control by the dead and even her relationship with ray lives in the shadow of Susie.

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ruth acts like a voice and a safe body for susie almost as if she is susie’s protector and physical body as susie lives through her

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Ruth is the only one Susie managed to touch as she left Earth, proving them to have a connection

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- Ruth becomes a memorialist, a chronicler of what's been hidden or forgotten
--> She sees New York City as a map of the dead – one which needs to be charted, recorded, and remembered
--> This devotion is what makes her valued in heaven, where the victims of the crimes Ruth discovers watch her like she is an idol because she is fighting for the women who is forgotten by violence and death

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Ruth is ghost-Susie's Earthly counterpart. Susie wishes she were alive and is constantly pressing against the Inbetween, trying to break through to Earth. Ruth, would prefer to be on the other side of the divide and is pressing on the Inbetween from the opposite direction

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ruth feels as though she needs to find out more about susie and what happened to her by almost retracing susie’s steps through the cornfield, giving off the idea that she is attempting to connect or become closer to susie during her death, allowing susie to live through ruth on earth

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she is obsessed with Susie’s death and then later the death of other women who were victims of George Harvey but overall victims of male violence

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Ruth is Susie's age, fourteen, when Susie dies. She and Susie had recently become friends, connecting over Ruth's art. Ruth is ghost-Susie's Earthly counterpart. Susie wishes she were alive and is constantly pressing against the Inbetween, trying to break through to Earth. Ruth, would prefer to be on the other side of the divide and is pressing on the Inbetween from the opposite direction.

Ruth is Susie's age, fourteen, when Susie dies. She and Susie had recently become friends, connecting over Ruth's art. Ruth is ghost-Susie's Earthly counterpart. Susie wishes she were alive and is constantly pressing against the Inbetween, trying to break through to Earth. Ruth, would prefer to be on the other side of the divide and is pressing on the Inbetween from the opposite direction.

Ruth sees the dark side of Earthly life. She isn't suicidal, but she sees Earth as place with more bad than good. After Susie dies, she tells Ray, "Well, as my dad would say, it means she's out of this shithole"

Ruth and Susie were developing a friendship on Earth, but their relationship intensifies when Susie dies. Susie touches Ruth's shoulder when she's escaping Mr. Harvey to the afterlife. Ruth sees her, and it changes her life forever. She becomes obsessed with Susie and with people who died of violent crimes. She also turns to vegetarianism, instantly drawing parallels between Susie's slaughter and the slaughter of animals. Her obsession with Susie transforms her art. Before Susie's death, she focused on drawing. Afterwards, however, she gets into poetry and journal writing.

Ruth becomes a memorialist, a chronicler of what's been hidden or forgotten. She sees New York City as a map of the dead - one which needs to be charted, recorded, and remembered. This devotion is what makes her a superstar in heaven, where the victims of the crimes Ruth discovers watch her like an afternoon soap. This is what makes her welcome in heaven. It gives her the unique privilege of going to heaven and giving talks before she dies. Her generosity in loaning Susie her body also rates big applause among the inhabitants of Susie's heaven.

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Ruth is Susie's age, fourteen, when Susie dies. She and Susie had recently become friends, connecting over Ruth's art. Ruth is ghost-Susie's Earthly counterpart. Susie wishes she were alive and is constantly pressing against the Inbetween, trying to break through to Earth.

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Lovely Bones- Ruth Character Analysis. "I had told people about her, what she did, how she observed moments of silence up and down the city and wrote small individual prayers in her journal, and the story had traveled so quickly that women lined up to know if she found where