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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a fun book about a teenagers afterlife. Not haunting like, The Lovely Bones, but a great quick read. I am always glad to know Dogs make it to Elsewheres too! I definitely enjoy these new books about young girls dying young.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A longer version of this review was published on Lost in a Good Book - https://wp.me/p3x8rS-395
Despite being well before The Good Place, this is a beautiful story that captures what I adored about that show: an afterlife that is still a life where you can grow and think and love before starting the cycle again.
Despite being well before The Good Place, this is a beautiful story that captures what I adored about that show: an afterlife that is still a life where you can grow and think and love before starting the cycle again.
There is a wonderful structure to the Elsewhere world while also being mystical. There’s rules and guidelines, there are things still bound by reality in terms of what is possible, but there is also a touch of the unknown, the magical, and the unexplained. The Benjamin Button aspect of the universe was really well conceived and I loved how Zevin ties that into relationships, living situations, and jobs.
We get to see Liz’s perspective mainly but around halfway through Zevin branches out and we see aspects of other characters like Betty and other key characters. I liked this balance because Liz’s story is what we want most, but the small additions of the other voices gives unique insights and great additions to the story without overshadowing Liz.
Zevin has created a beautiful story that is light-hearted but still explores the weight of grief, death, and what it means to be alive.
Content Warnings
Minor: Cancer, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Grief, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A very young adult book, and I'm now an adult adult...
Of all afterlife books, this has to be my favorite, not only because I greatly enjoyed the story but also because I loved the idea of the afterlife represented. Rather than a heaven or a hell, a good or a bad, we find Elsewhere, a place where the dead retrogress back to infants before they are sent back to earth, where you can watch those who are still alive, where people can talk to dogs, where life continues much as it did when you were alive. Killed by a hit and run driver, Liz Hall never got to live to her sixteenth birthday, never got to have her first boyfriend, and never got a chance to tell her parents are her killer. When she wakes up on a ship taking her to an unknown place, it takes her a bit before she realizes what has happened. Upon realization, though, Liz is angry.
She is taken in by a grandma she never knew. Instead of getting to know her, though, Liz wants to spend her days watching her family and her friends. In her depression and inability to cope with her death, Liz loses herself to an obsession with the living. When she’s finally able to pull away, she finds comfort in a new job and, eventually, a new friendship which gives way to romance. Though she’s aging backwards, she still continues to mature. And maybe she’ll never turn sixteen, but at least she has the chance to live the life she missed out on.
Philosophical and tender, Elsewhere explores life after death in a unique take on the after world. Just because life has ended doesn’t mean living needs to, as well.
She is taken in by a grandma she never knew. Instead of getting to know her, though, Liz wants to spend her days watching her family and her friends. In her depression and inability to cope with her death, Liz loses herself to an obsession with the living. When she’s finally able to pull away, she finds comfort in a new job and, eventually, a new friendship which gives way to romance. Though she’s aging backwards, she still continues to mature. And maybe she’ll never turn sixteen, but at least she has the chance to live the life she missed out on.
Philosophical and tender, Elsewhere explores life after death in a unique take on the after world. Just because life has ended doesn’t mean living needs to, as well.
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I always found the concept behind this book to be so unique. I don't remember all too much of what actually happened in the book as far as the main plot is concerned, but overall I found the book to be very interesting.
3.5
Cute book. It was a little slow all the way through, but still a nice story. There were several passages near the end that I loved, and which really showed off Gabrielle Zevin's talent. Like this one:
There will be other lives.
There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands.
And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecision and revisions.
And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles.
And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk.
And there will be other lives for a man you don't recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything.
Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess.
If more of the book had been written like that, it definitely would have gotten a higher rating from me. Still, I can't wait to read more of Zevin's books. Elsewhere was good, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac was great, so I'm going to assume that All These Things I've Done will be amazing.
Cute book. It was a little slow all the way through, but still a nice story. There were several passages near the end that I loved, and which really showed off Gabrielle Zevin's talent. Like this one:
There will be other lives.
There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands.
And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecision and revisions.
And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles.
And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk.
And there will be other lives for a man you don't recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything.
Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess.
If more of the book had been written like that, it definitely would have gotten a higher rating from me. Still, I can't wait to read more of Zevin's books. Elsewhere was good, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac was great, so I'm going to assume that All These Things I've Done will be amazing.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very easy to read book with a nice storyline. I liked the little romance plot that developed