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njilrak 's review for:
The Afterlife of Holly Chase
by Cynthia Hand
At first, I didn't think I would like this book, because the main character's way of thinking was far from likeable to me. Holly was a spoilt rich girl, who (even though she had an interesting interpretation of kapitalism,
"Well, I mean, not everyone can be fabulous, right?" she said distractedly. We'd had versions of this fight before, where Ro whined about how materialistic I was becoming and how everything shouldn't be about a person's wealth or social status. Of course Ro had to think that way, because she was poor."
, and the formulation of her thoughts and way of speech somewhat reminded me of the 100% Coco books I used to read when I was younger,
"I didn't laugh at him, because he was, like, mildly terrifying.")
had a way of acting towards other people because she let her wealth go to her head, I just couldn't ignore. She for example has an "Inner Yvonne", the voice in the back of her mind who resembles her deceased stepmother (a rich model who called herself a realist). Holly strives to be just like her ever since she died, and fills in what Yvonne would have said if she were in that situation, always a snarky comment on clothing choices at the ready, or she advises Holly on making choices that would be beneficial in her career.
"'It's about survival of the fittest, my darling,' the Inner Yvonne said, 'so you have to be the fittest. That's life.'"
But because that also results in egoism and pride, she for example bossed around her maid and made her stay during Christmas even though her daughter was deadly ill. And that was exactly why she was chosen to be the next "Scrooge" to be reformed by the visitation of three ghosts. Except, that didn't work, she died, and became the new ghost of Christmas past. But, just like Boz (the boss of Project Scrooge) said, no matter how bad the actions of the Scrooge, eventually, as you get more information about why they ended up like that, you'll start to root for them and hope they'll realize their wrongdoings. Because "Every Scrooge deserves a second chance".
And the 6 years as a ghost did her, in terms of character development, good. In the beginning, she called it her "own personal version of hell". Because in that time, she had little salary, so no excessive shopping, always the same repetitive tasks to do at work with no prospect of anything better; something to dream of for her future, and no-one who recognized her in a city far from home, and a death certificate with her name on it. It made her feel alone.
"Besides, she'd dumped me long before I'd died. She had a life, a life where she could apparently just call up my dad and talk to him anytime she wanted. A life filled with people to meet and places to explore. Where she had a future. She had a life. I didn't.
I almost got all the way home before I decided I couldn't stand to be in my apartment, so I walked. I walked and walked and walked. Alone. I was always alone. I was always going to be alone, I realized.
"Not going anywhere anytime soon."
Stuck, forever.
Lost.
I could see them, right there in front of me-the people and places and things that other people saw. But I couldn't touch their world. I couldn't be a real part of it. I was just a ghost."
But as she works as a ghost of Christmas past for project Scrooge, she is one of the few people who can empathize with the current Scrooges (well, actually just one, because who cares about those old misers, right?). And because of that, she gets to see their similarities and gets to think about her own memories and the way she handled things. To the disturbing surprise of her co-workers, when they used a device that could translate the things Holly thinks about to text while she sifts the memories in the Scrooges head, but she accidentally ended up reliving one of her own traumatic memories.
"A tragic past is quite normal for a Scrooge," Boz said, way too cheerfully.
This, I would argue, is why Scrooges are so messed up. It wouldn't be hard to avoid becoming a bad person if your life had always been full of ice cream and apple pie. But we'd been given rotten apples. It was monumentally unfair, in my opinion."
And this year, instead of old gramps and grannies, the Scrooge just happens to be a young and handsome seventeen-year old boy: Ethan. Over the course of the story, Holly starts to get the feeling she has a real connection to him, and goes out of her way to avoid the security cameras from the Ghost of Christmas present, observing his daily life, to meet him in person. Something that is absolutely forbidden for an employee of Project Scrooge.
And, slowly but surely, she started to be nicer to others, refraining from making snarky comments about them out loud and in her head, not only using them for her own gain, and really starting to value them as friends or colleagues. She even stopped blindly listening to her Inner Yvonne, and went against her in her thoughts.
"It's just so frustrating!" Stephanie bursts out and then flops down into her chair.
"What's going on with you?" I asked, "Did something happen?'
She bit her lip. Today she was wearing a pastel pink top that had Boston terriers printed all over it, and a purple cardigan.
"She looks like a unicorn just threw up on her" said my Inner Yvonne.
She also looks upset, I thought."
And even though the ending wasn't the one most people would be rooting for, it was the most fitting one to make Holly's character development complete.
I also want to address how interesting I found the concept of Project Scrooge: a company that re-enacts 'A Christmas Carol' from Dickens every year, where they try to reform Scrooges. Because if those people don't change their course of action, they will die somewhere in the upcoming year.
The people working there are filled with Christmas spirit (to Holly's annoyance), except for the three ghosts, who are really dead and failed Scrooges. And when there is no ghost to do the job, human substitutes are asked. The ghosts get special abilities, such as seeing someone's memories when touching them, seeing the future, or a hoodie which makes them invisible. But the rest of the company works fully on technology (such as hidden cameras to follow the Scrooge in daily life, or electrodes to connect to the brain of a Scrooge to see memories).
Perfectly summed up as "Science and magic", which I don't see that often in fantasy books, so I found that a nice touch.
All in all, I think themes such as coping with grief, loneliness, being in a position that forces you to lie, feeling like you can only act like others think you should, family issues, betrayal, and coming to terms with your mistakes and making up for them, but also friendship, mutual understanding and genuinly wanting the best for someone were very beautifully woven into this modern reinterpretation of Dicken's 'A Christmas Carol'. And, since I haven't seen the movie of the original story/read the original book, I look forward to do so next Christmas. Because I can now instantly link the names of the original characters to the role they will be playing in the story ('the Cratchit', 'the Tiny Tim', the Marley', 'the Fezziwig', 'the Belle, and 'the Fan'), and what better story is there to get into the Christmas spirit then this? Like Holly said, "Because that's what it's all about, right? Connection. Togetherness.
Love."
"Well, I mean, not everyone can be fabulous, right?" she said distractedly. We'd had versions of this fight before, where Ro whined about how materialistic I was becoming and how everything shouldn't be about a person's wealth or social status. Of course Ro had to think that way, because she was poor."
, and the formulation of her thoughts and way of speech somewhat reminded me of the 100% Coco books I used to read when I was younger,
"I didn't laugh at him, because he was, like, mildly terrifying.")
had a way of acting towards other people because she let her wealth go to her head, I just couldn't ignore. She for example has an "Inner Yvonne", the voice in the back of her mind who resembles her deceased stepmother (a rich model who called herself a realist). Holly strives to be just like her ever since she died, and fills in what Yvonne would have said if she were in that situation, always a snarky comment on clothing choices at the ready, or she advises Holly on making choices that would be beneficial in her career.
"'It's about survival of the fittest, my darling,' the Inner Yvonne said, 'so you have to be the fittest. That's life.'"
But because that also results in egoism and pride, she for example bossed around her maid and made her stay during Christmas even though her daughter was deadly ill. And that was exactly why she was chosen to be the next "Scrooge" to be reformed by the visitation of three ghosts. Except, that didn't work, she died, and became the new ghost of Christmas past. But, just like Boz (the boss of Project Scrooge) said, no matter how bad the actions of the Scrooge, eventually, as you get more information about why they ended up like that, you'll start to root for them and hope they'll realize their wrongdoings. Because "Every Scrooge deserves a second chance".
And the 6 years as a ghost did her, in terms of character development, good. In the beginning, she called it her "own personal version of hell". Because in that time, she had little salary, so no excessive shopping, always the same repetitive tasks to do at work with no prospect of anything better; something to dream of for her future, and no-one who recognized her in a city far from home, and a death certificate with her name on it. It made her feel alone.
"Besides, she'd dumped me long before I'd died. She had a life, a life where she could apparently just call up my dad and talk to him anytime she wanted. A life filled with people to meet and places to explore. Where she had a future. She had a life. I didn't.
I almost got all the way home before I decided I couldn't stand to be in my apartment, so I walked. I walked and walked and walked. Alone. I was always alone. I was always going to be alone, I realized.
"Not going anywhere anytime soon."
Stuck, forever.
Lost.
I could see them, right there in front of me-the people and places and things that other people saw. But I couldn't touch their world. I couldn't be a real part of it. I was just a ghost."
But as she works as a ghost of Christmas past for project Scrooge, she is one of the few people who can empathize with the current Scrooges (well, actually just one, because who cares about those old misers, right?). And because of that, she gets to see their similarities and gets to think about her own memories and the way she handled things. To the disturbing surprise of her co-workers, when they used a device that could translate the things Holly thinks about to text while she sifts the memories in the Scrooges head, but she accidentally ended up reliving one of her own traumatic memories.
"A tragic past is quite normal for a Scrooge," Boz said, way too cheerfully.
This, I would argue, is why Scrooges are so messed up. It wouldn't be hard to avoid becoming a bad person if your life had always been full of ice cream and apple pie. But we'd been given rotten apples. It was monumentally unfair, in my opinion."
And this year, instead of old gramps and grannies, the Scrooge just happens to be a young and handsome seventeen-year old boy: Ethan. Over the course of the story, Holly starts to get the feeling she has a real connection to him, and goes out of her way to avoid the security cameras from the Ghost of Christmas present, observing his daily life, to meet him in person. Something that is absolutely forbidden for an employee of Project Scrooge.
And, slowly but surely, she started to be nicer to others, refraining from making snarky comments about them out loud and in her head, not only using them for her own gain, and really starting to value them as friends or colleagues. She even stopped blindly listening to her Inner Yvonne, and went against her in her thoughts.
"It's just so frustrating!" Stephanie bursts out and then flops down into her chair.
"What's going on with you?" I asked, "Did something happen?'
She bit her lip. Today she was wearing a pastel pink top that had Boston terriers printed all over it, and a purple cardigan.
"She looks like a unicorn just threw up on her" said my Inner Yvonne.
She also looks upset, I thought."
And even though the ending wasn't the one most people would be rooting for, it was the most fitting one to make Holly's character development complete.
I also want to address how interesting I found the concept of Project Scrooge: a company that re-enacts 'A Christmas Carol' from Dickens every year, where they try to reform Scrooges. Because if those people don't change their course of action, they will die somewhere in the upcoming year.
The people working there are filled with Christmas spirit (to Holly's annoyance), except for the three ghosts, who are really dead and failed Scrooges. And when there is no ghost to do the job, human substitutes are asked. The ghosts get special abilities, such as seeing someone's memories when touching them, seeing the future, or a hoodie which makes them invisible. But the rest of the company works fully on technology (such as hidden cameras to follow the Scrooge in daily life, or electrodes to connect to the brain of a Scrooge to see memories).
Perfectly summed up as "Science and magic", which I don't see that often in fantasy books, so I found that a nice touch.
All in all, I think themes such as coping with grief, loneliness, being in a position that forces you to lie, feeling like you can only act like others think you should, family issues, betrayal, and coming to terms with your mistakes and making up for them, but also friendship, mutual understanding and genuinly wanting the best for someone were very beautifully woven into this modern reinterpretation of Dicken's 'A Christmas Carol'. And, since I haven't seen the movie of the original story/read the original book, I look forward to do so next Christmas. Because I can now instantly link the names of the original characters to the role they will be playing in the story ('the Cratchit', 'the Tiny Tim', the Marley', 'the Fezziwig', 'the Belle, and 'the Fan'), and what better story is there to get into the Christmas spirit then this? Like Holly said, "Because that's what it's all about, right? Connection. Togetherness.
Love."