Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatric practice.
Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver’s license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. 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. And it is not going well. 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?
This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.
This book is actually quite a fantastic read.
I find we always read about what happens up to death; all the stuff you want to do before you die (bucket list stuff) but what about afterwards? Where do we go … what happens? After reading “The Lovely Bones” and loving the idea of Alice Sebold’s Heaven (which mirrored my own) I was excited to start this book to see Gabrielle Zevin’s version.
The book doesn’t lag in any part nor does it seem monotonous which some books about death seems to have a trend with, but keeps the reader interested in the struggle that Liz finds with her feelings about watching her family live their lives and move on, dealing with the responsibilities of Death, “living” with a grandmother she never met and meeting the Taxi driver who caused her untimely death.
Not Terribly sad (I didn’t cry) but surprisingly uplifting and kinda makes you wonder….
If you’ve enjoyed these books, You’ll enjoy Elsewhere:
Tuck Everlasting
The Lovely Bones
You can also find more information about this book on the Authors website: http://www.memoirsofa.com/Elsewhere.html
Excerpt from the book:
Liz took one last look into the binoculars, checking to make sure that the people who should be at her funeral are there. Edward the cross country runner is there, manfully blowing his nose on his sleeve. Her English teacher is there and so is Personal Fitness. She is pleasantly surprised to see World History. But what happened to Algebra II and biology? Liz wonders. (Those were her favorite subjects). And she can’t seem to find her best friend anywhere. Hadn’t it been Zooey’s fault she was at the mall to begin with? Where the hell is Zooey? Disgusted, Liz leaves the binoculars before her time is up. She has seen enough.
I am dead, Liz thinks. And then she says it aloud to hear how it sounds: “I am dead. Dead.”
It is a strange thing being dead, because her body doesn’t feel dead at all. Her body feels the same as it always has.
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