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.
My Rating: 4/5
This is the most unique and original book I have read in a really long time.
Death and the afterlife is a very grey area which made it a very interesting subject.
The ability to talk to dogs was something that I enjoyed as I am very much a dog person.
I feel like the magnitude not only of the plot but also the setting interfered with the character development as even though I didn't hate any of the characters, I didn't really care for them that much either.
The whole love aspect didn't blend in well with the overall feel of the book and when introduced, it took the story a completely different direction from where I wanted and expected it to go.
I really loved the whole idea of this kind of afterlife and probably would happily read a book just about the mechanisms surrounding it.
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