Read in 2026 - 23: Elsewhere

Elsewhere

Gabrielle Zevin

My sister lent me this paperback during our recent holiday in Ripon, and I finished it on our last night there.

It is a Young Adult novel in the genre “Magic Realism” (according to wikipedia), but although my own Young Adult time was decades ago, I enjoyed the book very much.

 

The idea behind the story is that people who die are neither here nor there, but elsewhere.

And “Elsewhere” is indeed the place where 15-year-old Liz lands after she dies in a hit and run accident while cycling to the mall, where she was supposed to meet her best friend to help choose her prom dress.

 

Although Liz makes a friend during the passage on the ship to Elsewhere, and upon arrival meets her grandmother (who died before she was born), and Elsewhere doesn’t seem a bad place at all, she longs for her life back on Earth. 

As a teenager, she still had so much ahead and so much to look forward to, and she can not accept that she’ll never be 16, never will have a driving license, graduate from High School, go to college, move out from home and generally do all the things on does as one is growing up.

 

Will she come to terms with her new “life”?

 

There was a lot in this book to like. Most of the characters are like real people, their thoughts and actions plausible. I guess my favourites were Betty, Liz’s grandmother, and the dog she adopts (yes, pets go Elsewhere, too, when they die).

I wasn’t quite in agreement with the ending, but that’s just my personal taste, I suppose.

It was my first read by this author. My sister has more, and I might borrow them from her, too. Clicking on word "wikipedia" above takes you to the entry about the book, which of course links to an entry about the author, which I knew nothing about until reading up on her.