![]() The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.Īutumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart their mothers are still best friends. Zevin’s smooth, omniscient third-person narration and matter-of-fact presentation of her imagined world carries readers along, while her deft, understated character development allows them to get to know her characters slowly and naturally. Personal choices still make a difference and characters continue to learn and grow, despite the fact that they age backwards from the moment of their deaths. Love, jealousy, grief, commitment, frustration and friendship all exist “Elsewhere,” making death not that different from life after all. Zevin’s creation of a believable, intriguing afterlife and her depiction of Liz’s struggle to adjust to her new situation will captivate teens ready for a thought-provoking read. Her sudden death in a hit-and-run accident puts an end to her life on earth-and that’s when the story begins. She’s looking forward to getting her license, enjoying helping her best friend plan for the prom and anticipating a long, full life. I'd recommend it for maybe the late elementary/middle school age group, for whom the ideas would probably seem new and interesting instead of under-developed.An unusual premise and a thoughtful treatment make Zevin’s first effort at writing for young adults a success. That said, it was an enjoyable read, and it kept me up all night. ![]() I realize that I'm probably judging Elsewhere on criteria it never promised to deliver on, but still, I think it's reasonable to expect a book about the afterlife to go further down the road of afterlife dynamics than Elsewhere does. Instead, though, what I found out was that I was expecting more than this book intended to deliver. I almost expected to find out that everything was a bit too smooth for a reason, for there to be a Big Bad behind the scenes (who figured out the whole cyclical pattern, anyway? What would happen if babies weren't sent to the River? What keeps the whole acclimation system running smoothly? Altruism? Really? It feels more likely to be part of a nefarious plot.) or to find out that everyone in Elsewhere were actually robots, or something. In fact, everything in Elsewhere worked just a bit too smoothly, without enough consideration of the difficult issues involved. All of those aspects were present in the story, but their treatment was generally superficial and felt unrealistic. I wanted more exploration of, among other things, the economics of Elsewhere society, the dynamics of relationships that span death, and the existential issues of aging backwards and knowing the actual way that the world works. If you're considering it from a YA perspective it's probably quite good, but there wasn't enough depth to really be interesting as an adult reader. In the category of books written from the perspective of dead girls (and it's very odd that that's a category), and also in the category of speculative fiction about the afterlife, it came up a bit short, for me. I read the entire thing in one night, so it must have been compelling, but I wasn't amazed. It is a novel that tells of sadness with heartbreaking honesty, and of love and happiness with uplifting brilliance. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?įull of the most ingenious detail and woven around the most touching and charming relationships, this is a novel of hope, of redemption and rebirth. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. In Elsewhere, death is only the beginning.Įlsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she is killed in a hit-and-run accident. You can't get sick, and you can't get older. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are beautiful. ![]() Elsewhere is such a book” - The New York Times Book Review “Every so often a book comes along with a premise so fresh and arresting it seems to exist in a category all its own. ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME
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