Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

Synopsis:
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 Review:
Elsewhere was a beautiful story full of meaning and wonder which kept me thinking the whole time. Elsewhere is a place where people grow younger while people on Earth grow older. While this might be a strange way to view the cycle of life and death, I find it looks at how age is just a number and it is experiences that make a person. This book makes you really consider what it means to live and die and what really matters while we are alive. It seems all those things that are so important in our world have no meaning unless we give it meaning and it is up to each individual person to create the life they want. The biggest and most important theme was love and what it means to love someone, even after they are gone.
At first I did not know what to think of this book because it is based upon the afterlife and what happens to us when we die. It was a very interesting concept for a young adult book and I applaud the author for tackling it with such grace. I enjoyed the range of characters and what each one had to offer Liz on her journey back to life. I have had this book on my “To Read” list for years and I can say it was worth reading!