"After fifteen-year-old Liz Hall is hit by a taxi and killed, she finds herself in a place that is both like and unlike Earth, where she must adjust to her new status and figure out how to 'live.'"
Our fearless Destinee led the discussion, which ranged from "If you could choose any avocation, what would it be?" to "What are you looking forward to most?" to "What on Earth did all this symbolism mean?!"
As usual, feelings about the book was mixed: while some us us enjoyed the book for it's philosophical aspects (What does it mean to have lived? Can you choose to be happy?), others found it frustrating, or even boring, due to its slower pace and lack of action.
This is definitely a quieter sort of book, one that asks its reader to wonder what it might mean to die young, and miss out on a lot of the life experiences about which adults reminisce. Is a life lived differently than what you'd expected worse somehow? Or can it be just as worth living as that 'other' life?
If you've already read Elsewhere and would like to read something similar, try some of these teen and adult titles. (I've linked to a mix of print, ebooks and audiobooks, all in the interest of getting you to summaries quickly!)
- Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- The Fault in our Stars by John Green
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
- How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
- If I Stay by Gayle Forman
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
- The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Any I missed? What did you think of the book?
No comments:
Post a Comment