Title: Elsewhere
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Rating: 5 stars!!!!
Ages recommended to: 12/13 and up!
Liz Hall is dead.
Kind of.
She's dead, but she's kind of still living.
At first she thinks it's a dream- it has to be, right? She's on a boat, with her roomate, Thandi. And she meets rock star Curtis Jest. You only meet rock stars in dreams.
But when her memories start coming back, she realizes she's dead. The boat she's on is bringing her to the land of Elsewhere, where everyone goes when they die. Except, you don't stay the same age, or get older in Elsewhere. You get younger as the days go by, until you're a baby again so you can be sent back to Earth to be reborn.
Liz is horrified when she finds out this is what her 'life' is now. She becomes depressed and wants only to go back home, where everything can be normal again. She was only 15! That's way too young to lose everything.
In time, Liz finds her place in Elsewhere and things get better for her.... Or do they?
This book was FANTASTIC- I'm amazed with Zevin's writing!! It is just.... like, really good!! Very very very very much recommended.
Praise for Elsewhere:
"Zevin offers a strikingly original answer to the eternal question: what happens when we die?.... The often wry, always absorbing narrative sensitively portrays Lizzie's grief and anger at the loss of her old life and her slow and painful acceptance of her existence in Elswehere. With an intriguing and well-developed promise, thoughtful characterization, and refreshing style, Zevin's poignant novel rewards readings with a view of death that celebrates the rich complexities of being alive." ~ The Horn Book
"A quiet book that provides much to think about and discuss." ~ School Library Journal
"This inventive novel slices right to the bone of human yearning, offering up an indelible vision of life and death as equally rich sides of the same coin." ~ Booklist
