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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
Gabrielle Zevin created the most brilliant and amazing story with this novel. Although considered YA fiction, anyone can read this novel and come away with something positive. Through her protagonist, Liz Hall - a 16 year old girl - Zevin puts a new twist on the answers to the questions surrounding death: What happens? Where do you go? What do you do? How do you take it all in? And, she doesn't do it by following the whole "Heaven and Hell" scenario. This novel surely has left me hoping that "Elsewhere" is something that I will get to experience. :)
3.25
Perfectly fine book. It’s a cool concept and some of the themes they deal with are life’s (well I guess death) greatest existential questions. I think it’s a great book for younger kids or teenagers pondering about life and what happens after death. I think maybe I just read too many books on death, etc that this just felt a bit light to me.
Perfectly fine book. It’s a cool concept and some of the themes they deal with are life’s (well I guess death) greatest existential questions. I think it’s a great book for younger kids or teenagers pondering about life and what happens after death. I think maybe I just read too many books on death, etc that this just felt a bit light to me.
This was my favorite book in high school, so I decided to reread it after probably 12 years! I still find the idea of Elsewhere very intriguing and creative, I didn’t find the plot itself as interesting as I remembered. Still recommend this book for the innovative idea of what happens after death.
I definitely read this when I was a lot younger but I found reading it as an adult to be so irritating (hence why it took me this long to finish)
Generally quite sweet young adult book with interesting themes around death and loss.
Another one with a weird age gap relationship between a teen girl and an adult man that goes entirely unexamined, though, which I am definitely not a fan of. The reverse ageing plot point seems to brush it under the rug, like the older man looks like a 17 year old boy therefore it's fine, but they still have their memories and the totality of their experience in their heads, so how is it not creepy for someone in their mid 30s experience-wise to be interested in a straight up teen girl? It's even mentioned at one point that while they're 9 and 11 in elsewhere, they would have been 22 and 41 on earth. But then they also do seem to regress into actual childlike mental states when they're little kids, so I don't really get it. Like their maturity level reverses as their age does, but they keep all their memories, and what is maturity if not the collective learning you gain by experience?
The concept just ended up a bit muddled, for me, but maybe I'm just thinking about it too much. As a young adult novel (which I have to say, I don't usually read) it examined the themes well enough.
Another one with a weird age gap relationship between a teen girl and an adult man that goes entirely unexamined, though, which I am definitely not a fan of. The reverse ageing plot point seems to brush it under the rug, like the older man looks like a 17 year old boy therefore it's fine, but they still have their memories and the totality of their experience in their heads, so how is it not creepy for someone in their mid 30s experience-wise to be interested in a straight up teen girl? It's even mentioned at one point that while they're 9 and 11 in elsewhere, they would have been 22 and 41 on earth. But then they also do seem to regress into actual childlike mental states when they're little kids, so I don't really get it. Like their maturity level reverses as their age does, but they keep all their memories, and what is maturity if not the collective learning you gain by experience?
The concept just ended up a bit muddled, for me, but maybe I'm just thinking about it too much. As a young adult novel (which I have to say, I don't usually read) it examined the themes well enough.
Such a beautiful story with beautiful writing! I was not expecting to get so attached to the characters but, oh well, I loved every second of it.
Tearing up with this hopeful idea for our afterlife!
5 stars - thank you, Gabrielle Zevin.
Tearing up with this hopeful idea for our afterlife!
5 stars - thank you, Gabrielle Zevin.
Interesting concept, but a bit of a shallow exploration of death, grief and life. That being said it is a YA novel, and was a very easy read.
Nice book for a younger teen. In the book a young girl dies because she did not look both ways before crossing the street and got hit by a cab. She then goes to elsewhere when she dies. The time there goes backwards instead of forward and you go back to earth when you return to the baby stage. She meets her dead grandmother who died before she was born from breast cancer and gets a job for one thing she likes to do . She meets some friends snd learns new things as her she decreases.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A lovely exploration of life, death, and what a meaningful existence really means. Some of the pacing was a bit too fast in places, and I wish the book spent more time on certain parts. Great way to reflect at the end of the year!
This was a really interesting and creative story, but I just don't think it was well-written. I disliked the main character from the beginning and thus found her emotions dishonest much of the time.