Can you list some sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures you experienced within The Lovely Bones?

Your
question vividly refers to "sensory images," images that focus predominantly on one of
the five senses:  sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  Even before reading what you wrote, I
was already very aware of and impressed with Sebold's ability in this arena.  I challenged
myself to find one of each sensory image on a single page.

I didn't need to
look very far.

In fact, I didn't need to look any further than the rape
scene:  haunting images, yes, but also very memorable ones.  First, the words from the
text:

"We're having string beans and
lamb."

I was the mortar, he was the pestle.

"Your brother has a new finger painting, and I made apple crumb
cake."

Mr. Harvey made me lie still underneath him and listen to the
beating of his heart and the beating of mine.  How mine skipped like a rabbit, and how his
thudded, a hammer against cloth.  We lay there with our bodies touching, and, as I shook, a
powerful knowledge took hold.  He had done this thing to me and I had lived.  That was all.  I
was still breathing.  I heard his heart.  I smelled his breath.  The dark earth surrounding us
smelled like what it was, moist dirt where worms and animals lived their daily lives.  I could
have yelled for hours. (14)

All five senses are
represented here in these very few lines.  Every single one is a negative image, and rightly so
(except for the few images of the family's life at home).  Although some of these images can be
dual images, in that they may represent sight/touch/taste, I will use the main sense to
represent each one here.

SIGHT:  Ironically, the
most common sensory image (sight) is the one found LEAST here.  The most disturbing one is the
"mortar" and "pestle" image here to represent the actual act.  However there
is also the "finger painting" as well as the sight of the "dark earth" with
its "worms" and "animals."

SOUND:  Susie is incredibly conscious of the sounds around
her during this scene even using the word "listen" to precede the images themselves: 
"beating of his heart," "the beating of mine," "his thudded,"
"I could have yelled for hours."

SMELL:  Susie's sense of smell focuses on the earth around
her which "smelled like what it was, moist dirt . . . " trying to drown out the fact
that she "smelled his breath."

TASTE: 
One of the most interesting things to me about this excerpt is how Seabold chooses to pair
positive taste images with that of the violence of rape.  The positive taste images, of course,
are coming from an unknowing Salmon family going about dinner time at the exact moment this is
happening to Susie.  So the reader hears about "string beans and lamb" as well as
"apple crumb cake."

TOUCH:  One cannot
read a rape scene without experiencing at least a few touch images.  Mr. Harvey makes Susie
"lie still underneath him" as she notices the "moist" earth around her and
takes usual sound images of a beating heart and turns them into touch images as hers
"skipped like a rabbit" and his "thudded, a hammer against cloth."

Furthermore, it is a chilling scene, but it is Seabold's sensory images that help it
remain so, . . . possibly etched into our memory forever, . . . and certainly a LOT more graphic
than the movie could ever be.