Elsewhere, Gabrielle Nevin
Elsewhere is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl named Liz, told from her death on backwards. After Liz is hit by a car, she finds herself in Elsewhere—Nevin’s afterlife, where you regress in age until, at seven days old, you’re sent back to Earth to be reincarnated. It’s a cool premise, particularly as far as books about dead teenagers go. Then again, this book stands so far above everything else in that subcategory that I’m loathe to make any comparisons.
Liz is a wonderful protagonist, who is, like all fifteen-year-olds, by turns a typical teenager and a mature young woman. Watching her grow physically younger as her life and maturity progress is heartbreaking—in particular, her relationship with Owen, who died in his mid-twenties but is about 17 when Liz arrives in Elsewhere, is devastating to read. And Elsewhere is a wonderfully constructed vision of the afterlife, partly because it is so mundane: people have jobs, make friends, get married, go fishing. Watching Liz navigate this new world is a pleasure.
Liz’s contact with the world of the living is limited, as it is against the laws of Elsewhere to attempt to communicate with Earth (though we see several attempts over the course of the novel). She does, however, spend a good chunk of the beginning of the novel watching her friends and family through binoculars that are available to all of Elsewhere’s residents. Among those she watches is the man responsible for her death, which is among the more interesting of the book’s subplots.
But anyway, here’s the truth and the bottom line: I cried through almost the entire book. It’s not that it was sad, though clearly parts of it are: I was, in complete seriousness, overwhelmed by its loveliness. The sadness that permeates this book is, after all, not very different from that which we experience here: the only difference, as one character points out, is that in Elsewhere, you know when the end is coming. And that imbues every single scene in this book with a sense of significance, joy, and, above all, gratitude. (So, you know, a refreshing change from most YA lit.)
In short: This book is a lovely, well-written meditation on forgiveness, love, and the importance of living well and fully. Read it, it’s good.
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