
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 15-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 16, not 14 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.
©2005 Gabrielle Zevin; (P)2005 Random House, Inc., Listening Library, a division of Random House, Inc.
"Fascinating. Zevin, in her first novel for young people, bends the laws of physics and biology to create an intricately imagined world." (Publishers Weekly)
Among the recent spate of YA books dealing with the afterlife is this gem. Zevin creates a world beyond this one without bogging down in theology. Fifteen-year-old Liz Hall, the victim of a hit-and-run driver, wakes up on a ship to Elsewhere. Life on Elsewhere seems to be the opposite of life here; you age in reverse until, as a baby, you once again sail to Earth. Cassandra Morris lives up to her fine reputation with this intriguing story. Her Lizzie comes across as complex and believable, communicating a whole range of emotions as she comes to terms with her new life and lets go of her life on Earth. (c) AudioFile 2006
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