Afterworlds

Young Adult Fiction

G/A  Westerfeld, Scott.  Afterworlds.  Simon Pulse, 2014.  608p. 978-1-48142-234-5.  19.99.

Darcy Patel just graduated from high school and instead of going to college, she’s taking a year off to move to New York City to finish her debut YA novel and work on the sequel. In alternating chapters, we, the reader, get to read her novel, titled Afterworlds, giving us essentially two novels in one book. As Darcy navigates NYC and changes and grows as an individual, her novel’s main character, Lizzie, experiences a change in life as well, when she is the sole survivor of a terrorist attack and becomes a living escort for newly deceased souls to the afterlife. While both “novels” are interesting, the chapters seem to alternate just when you want more of the current story. Switching back and forth takes the reader out of each story too abruptly. Setting the formatting aside, the two novels were fun reads, one realistic (and really geared towards book lovers) and the other a new twist on the paranormal. Loren Spector, LAPL, Memorial Branch Library