Pain in Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones 

While reading Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones, one recurring theme that stood out to me was pain.  While there are many things happening in the novel, pain is at the center of it.  Although I couldn’t understand on a personal level what each character was going through, I was able to connect with all of the characters because each one had their own pain to deal with outside of the pain the town as a whole felt.  Pain is universal.  Whether it was Trigger’s feelings of guilt about his brother, or Hogboss’s loss of Dennis, each character experienced his or her own unique pain.  While it might be easy to get lost in each character’s story and their own specific painful circumstances, it is also easy to see how pain brings them together. The robot and Jane’s mom’s ghost were able to find love in their pain. Henry was able to help Hogboss through the pain of losing Dennis, because he too knew what it felt like to lose Dennis.  It was beautiful to see how the pain the characters faced individually helped them to better understand the pain that others experienced.