The Ever After
Amy Huntley
Harper Collins
Madison Stanton doesn't know where she is or how she got there. But she does know this--she is dead. And alone, in a vast, dark space. The only company she has in this place are luminescent objects that turn out to be thing Maddy lost while she was alive. And soon she discovers that these artifacts, she can re-experience--and sometimes change--moments of her life.
Her First Kiss.
A Trip to Disney World.
Her Sister's Wedding.
A Disastrous Sleepover.
In reliving these moments, Maddy learns illuminating and sometimes frightening truth about her life--and death.
Before I go in-depth about it, i'm just gonna say: This. Book. Was. Amazing.
It's a book that makes you think about how you came to be in the world. About death and that comes before and what comes after. Maddy is a seventeen year old who's still growing up, even though she's dead. She's still learning life lessons and she still loves and feels, even in the afterlife.
And then there's Gabe. Oh god, Gabe. He was sweet and understanding and everything everyone wants in a boyfriend. He loves Maddy so much, and makes the point of showing it. Not that as a couple they don't fight, they do and you see it, but the way that they handle it after and accept it, shows it's true love.
Now this book made me cry. Yeah, i'm a sap for a good love story. It made me laugh too though, because Maddy is just such a likeable character you seem to forget that she's not alive. Because her emotions while she re-lives her life and the thoughts she has about changing it, are so real that it's like she's living.
When I finished reading it, it was 3:30 in the morning. Yeah, hadn't expected that. And when I went to sleep, I found out that I couldn't. I kept thinking about how amazing the story had flowed through me. It's not a complicated read, it's simple but deep and beautiful. Even the side characters, like her sister or her best friend, are so riveting to read and understand.
How the book is organized kind of confused me in the beginning, how it puts the age on the top and jumps from one memory to another. Sometimes the memories ended abruptly, leaving you confused and wondering what happened after. But that's the mystery about this story. It's a book about a dead girl, but it's a book about accepting one's life and growing up.
Now the ending! The ending made me bawl. It was so amazing written and so beautiful and just left me staring at the last page for a few minutes going, WOW.
The book in itself is a beautiful love story of a girl who can't move on without learning about her past. I rate:
-Harmony B.
