This book was okay, but not special, and at some points was downright difficult to read. The novel opens with a vivid description of a child rape and murder that was more disturbing than most horror novels I’ve read. The victim, Susie, narrates the rest of the story’s events from her own personal heaven, as she watches her family members struggle to get over her disappearance (her body is never found). I wish there had been more about the afterlife concept and Susie’s character development after she dies, her struggle to let go of her short life on earth. And the story was so unrelentingly sad, with very little payoff, that I had to wonder why I was bothering to read it at all.