Elsewhere Review.

Book: Elsewhere.

Written By: Gabrielle Zevin.

Pages: 277.

Synopsis: (From Book) 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?

My Thoughts: I sadly found this book disappointing.  I really enjoyed reading Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, and was hoping that Elsewhere would be just as great.  A big problem I have with this book is the fact that it moves to fast. There is so much put into this one book that you don’t have time to really let it all sink in.  It felt rushed.

The characters are a bit blah.  You don’t really get to know them well enough to really like them.  At first I thought I was gonna really like Thandi, but she’s not in the book enough to really get to know her.  She has no personality.  I’m sorry to say this, but when Gabrielle Zevin does try and give a little description of/facts about someone, it sound ridiculous. Owen sounds like a ridiculous person.

Liz is the biggest brat ever!  She has no respect for anyone at all.  Yeah, I know she is she is shocked because hello, she’s dead but come on.  You don’t have to be so bitchy and selfish.

I liked her general idea of afterlife, (you basically age backwards until you are a 7 day old baby, then you are reborn into the world.) I know that it’s kind of weird, but there were some parts that are just WAY over the top. For example being able to talk to dogs.  Also, if you don’t want anyone to know about “The Well”, then don’t tell them about it.

Speaking of The Well, I understand her want to tell her parents who killed her, but using it to tell her dad about a sweater she bought him is just plain stupid. Why would you want to cause trouble over a sweater? Yeah it would probably be nice for her dad to have it, but I don’t think it was worth the trouble.

After reading that Gabrielle Zevin doesn’t care about the after life, I wished that I had stopped reading when I first wanted to (After Part 1).  How can you write a book about something you don’t even care about, then expect people to like it? As I said before, I’m very disappointed. Elsewhere gets 2 Stars.