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A review by maedo
The Afterlife by Gary Soto
4.0
I have such a soft spot for YA books about teen narrators coping with their own deaths and exploring life after life. This type of story seems to require more wisdom from its narrator than YA books dealing with typical, everyday teen conflicts.
Like Gabrielle Zevin's Elsewhere, this book was both gorgeous and sad. Chuy is a sweet character, more endearing than Zevin's protagonist. It broke my heart that he fell in love with almost every girl he met, such a typical horny teenage boy with best intentions. For the most part, his voice was realistic, although I'm not sure that a teenage boy would have been as unselfish and wise as he was. Maybe.
I loved, too, that the closer time comes to the date of Chuy's funeral, the more his ghost body disappears, leaving the question of what really happens to a soul in the afterlife up in the air. The idea that the afterlife is unknown or personal is very nice to me. The whole concept reminded me of that bittersweet end of the first episode of Dead Like Me, when the little girl's soul runs off to her heaven, literally a fairground. I didn't cry at the end of this book like I ALWAYS cry during that episode, but I did feel a lot of the same sad, sad happiness.
Like Gabrielle Zevin's Elsewhere, this book was both gorgeous and sad. Chuy is a sweet character, more endearing than Zevin's protagonist. It broke my heart that he fell in love with almost every girl he met, such a typical horny teenage boy with best intentions. For the most part, his voice was realistic, although I'm not sure that a teenage boy would have been as unselfish and wise as he was. Maybe.
I loved, too, that the closer time comes to the date of Chuy's funeral, the more his ghost body disappears, leaving the question of what really happens to a soul in the afterlife up in the air. The idea that the afterlife is unknown or personal is very nice to me. The whole concept reminded me of that bittersweet end of the first episode of Dead Like Me, when the little girl's soul runs off to her heaven, literally a fairground. I didn't cry at the end of this book like I ALWAYS cry during that episode, but I did feel a lot of the same sad, sad happiness.