Elsewhere- Gabrielle Zevin

Title: Elsewhere

Author: Gabrielle Zevin

Format: Soft cover

Source: Bought new

Rating: 2/5

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 fifteen-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 sixteen, not fourteen 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.

**Note: I read this book awhile ago, hoping my view would change, but I feel the same as I did when I put it down. **

I was not a fan of Elsewhere. I wanted to read it for so long but put it off. I was at Chapter’s one day and seen it sitting there with her new book so I decided to pick both of them up, so far I have only read Elsewhere and I was not a fan.

The idea of the book captured my attention, but I felt the characters were not relate able at all. I enjoyed the description, but the part that really made me dislike the book was what happened between Owen and Liz. Why did he do that to her?! He was older than her and I would assume more mature but he acted in a terrible way. I was so frustrated with him. I want to throttle him. He drove me crazy, near the ending he improved but I am still not a fan.

I also found that Liz’s ability was a little I guess cheesy.  I think in cooperating this into the story could have been done better.  I have heard so many great things about this book, but I did not discover them.

I hate being so harsh against a book, but I was not impressed at all by this one. I still want to read her other books, but I would not personally recommend this one. I have heard great things about this so maybe it was just not a book I was meant to read.