Elsewhere
by Gabrielle Zevin
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Book Reviews of Elsewhere
Book Review: Wonderful story, well told
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Julina K. Mills
Everything Lizzie has spent the past 15 years looking forward to is gone in an instant. Killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street, Elizabeth Marie Hall suddenly finds herself dressed in white pajamas and traveling to a far-away land. Curious about how she ended up on a boat in the middle of the ocean, Lizzie begins to ask questions and soon pieces together the fading memories of her own death.
Death, however, is not at all what Lizzie expected. Much to her surprise she is greeted upon arrival by a youthful grandmother she never knew who teaches her about life in Elsewhere, where people get younger until they become babies once again and travel back to earth to start anew. Initially transfixed by the Observation Deck where she can watch bits and pieces of her family's life back on earth, Lizzie tries desperately to hold onto the past-and let go of it at the same time.
Struggling to accept that she will never have her driver's license, never go to college, and never get married, Lizzie begins to accept that life on Elsewhere is very similar, and yet oddly different from life on earth. Is it possible to fall in love, hold a job, and own a home while living life in reverse?
Lizzie explores these questions and finds the answers with her new friends and her new life after death. A charming story about growing up, Elsewhere encourages the reader to look toward the future and to expect the unexpected.
Raised as an only child, New York City author Gabrielle Zevin has created a fresh and intriguing storyline that captures the attention of teen and young adult readers alike.
Armchair Interviews says: A 5-star story for young adult readers.
Book Review: Welcome to Elsewhere where life runs backwards & being reborn is the end...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is amazing book about what possibly could happen after you die. Liz is a 15 year old girl who is tragically killed in a hit and run accident on her way to her friend's house.
She wakes to find herself on a ship, the SS Nile with thousands of other people heading to an unknown destination, but realisation that she is actaully dead is a long time in coming and only when she finally arrives at Elsewhere does she realise the truth, not only is she is dead, she is destined to get younger and younger until finally she is sent back to earth to live another life.
However Liz is not happy to find herself in Elsewhere even though she gets to meet her maternal Grandmother who died before she was born, and she finds herself drawn to the Observatory where she can look in on her "old" family to see what they are doing.
Liz finds it hard to aclimatise to Elswhere even with the help of a friendly Councillor, a Rock Star who died from an overdose and a young Black girl killed in a random shooting.
Only when Liz takes up a "job" looking after animals who come to Elsewhere (some humans in Elsewhere can speak Canine) and makes a friendship with Owen, an Elsewhere Detective who with many others make sure that no one tries to leave Elsewhere to contact their famlies back on earth does Liz start to accept her life/death in this new place where life runs backwards and memories are more in the heart that in the mind.
A poignant story of family, friendship, love, loss, sorrow, and the knowledge that life is a circle of renewal and the one constant is that you will inevitably end up in Elsewhere, in one guise or another.
A stunning novel that surely should be made into a movie.
Book Review: Interesting, but not great
Summary: 4 Stars
Gabrielle Zevin's YA novel Elsewhere conjures up an interesting answer to the question of what happens to us after death. Elsewhere exists alongside but apart from Earth. Death itself turns out to be much like life--rather boringly so, in fact--the singular exception being that the dead age backwards, regressing from the age they were at death to infancy and, finally, rebirth. This makes things interesting logistically, as a dead person's "real" and physical ages don't correspond, and the relative ages between people who knew one another in life are more often than not altered significantly. Also strange is the body's backward development: tattoos eventually disappear and bald heads sprout hair; people who've been gumming food for decades teethe.
The protagonist of Elsewhere is Elizabeth Hall, who is killed in a hit-and-run accident at the age of 15. The book follows her death from her initial difficulties accepting the truth through her embrace of life in Elsewhere. I found the book clunky in parts: A couple things Lizzie does--but which I won't reveal--don't seem realistic, and none of the characters jumps off the page as particularly appealing or true to life. The idea of talking dogs also left me cold. (In Elsewhere, communication with dogs is an easy matter of picking up a new language, Canine.) Presumably this is meant to appeal to readers, but dogs would lose much of their charm if they could betray our confidences or comment on our ability as providers. They'd just be stupid humans with fur.
In short, Elsewhere is not a great book, but the author's conception of an afterlife is an interesting one, and young readers may be intrigued by the logistics of reverse aging.
-- Debra Hamel
Book Review: Liz's Life not Living.
Summary: 5 Stars
Liz is a young girl about 15 when she gets hit by a taxi. She ends up in a place called Elsewhere. In Elsewhere Liz is dead, she ages backwards, and meets a lot of new people.
Liz often watched her family from the observation decks, and she knew it was her father's birthday. When she was alive she had bought him a sea green sweater that matched his eyes perfectly, she wrapped the gift and wrote him a very genuine sweet birthday card. She hid the present in her floorboards so, he wouldn't find it. Liz tries to communicate with living by swimming to a place deep in the ocean called the Well so, she could tell her brother where the present was and get it to her dad. As she was talking into the Well, the faucets every single one of them in her house had turned on, but her brother could hear her still. He thought she said the present was in her parent's room closets floorboard, but she really said that it was in her room, so her parents thought her brother was crazy and didn't believe him but they eventually found the present.
I would highly recommend this book, to both boys and girls but mostly girls. It is a very heartwarming sincere story about a teenage girl's life after death. To see how Liz maturely handled and solved all her problems really inspired me. Every teenager should consider reading this book. Liz's unique personality is definitely worth taking the time to read about.
Book Review: this book surprised me..
Summary: 4 Stars
when i started reading the first few pages of the book, i didnt think i would like it. i actually didnt want to read anymore of it, but im glad i did.
this book is really good. its about a 15 year old girl, Liz, who gets hit by a car and dies. when she wakes up she realizes shes in a place called "elsewhere" where instead of aging forward, you age backwards until youre a baby and you go back to earth.
i liked how at first Liz thought there was no hope for her and she hated Elsewhere, but in time she became more open minded and found what she really wanted: love.
my favorite character in this book is betty, who is liz's grandmother. shes so understanding and so patient. even when liz did something bad, betty never yelled or got angry. instead she just forgave her and still loved her. betty is a very warm character that i got to love.
another think i like about this book is how much drama there was. there wasnt a single boring chapter in this book.
even though this book was good, there were still things i didnt like. i didnt like how the author spoke for the characters. i didnt know how they felt, but i was TOLD what they felt. i also had a lot of unanswered questions throughout the whole book.
this isn't my favorite book but this is one of the most unique books i ever read.