Thank you BookSparks #partner, for the finished copy of After Life in exchange for my honest review.
I am thrilled to be a @booksparks ambassador for the Winter Reading Challenge! The theme this season is ‘The Art of Reading’ & the lineup of books is looking pretty good, if I do say so myself!
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Published: January 7, 2025
Summary:
“After Life is a masterful tale about a family coping with loss, showing the way grief affects us and people we don’t even know in ways we don’t see. Once I met Amber and her family, I didn’t want to let them go.” -—Brigid Kemmerer, New York Times bestselling author of Carving Shadows into Stone
“Forman is a master at making her readers fall in love—with a girl whose life is over, with a community of people in a small town who are barely surviving her loss, and with the incredible, surprising way everyone’s stories knit together into a heartbreaking and hopeful whole.” —E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud
One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams.
Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now.
This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?
This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.
My thoughts:
For a short book, this one sure packs an emotional punch! It’s so thought-provoking and would definitely make a great book club pick as there is so much to unpack here. While it is definitely a YA book, I think the topic of grief, loss, and moving on will appeal to a much wider audience. Having recently experienced a few losses myself, I appreciated the messages conveyed in this book and will be thinking of this one for some time to come!
Stay tuned for the next book in this season’s Winter Reading Challenge Line-up! And to see the full line-up of books, head over to the BookSparks website.
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