By: Scott Westerfeld
Genre: YFB - General fiction (Children's/Teenage)
Published by: Penguin Australia
Published: 24 Sep 2014
ISBN: 9780143572046
Description
Scott Westerfeld is renowned in the YA fiction market, this is a perfect blend of contemporary love story and fantastical thriller.
Darcy has secured a publishing deal for her three paranormal books. Now she must find the wherewithall to write the second one whilst she has a reprieve from going to college, thanks to her savvy sister. She has enough funds for 3 years in NY... if she eats only noodles every day.
In the story Darcy has written, the character Lizzie survives a traumatic shooting event only to discover that she has become a psychopomp a spirit guide to the dead.
But she's not dead.. or is she? With one foot in each world, Lizzie's challenges are somewhat unique. Then there's her hot spirit guide... and all those ghosts that keep appearing... and the 'living' friend she usually tells everything to...
More than all I'd seen and heard. It was coming back to life that made me believe in the afterworld.
Review
An incredible novel by the super talented Scott Westerfeld. The book has two great stories intertwined in alternate chapters.
The first follows the main character, Darcy Patel, receiving a huge advance from a publisher for a book manuscript that she has submitted. Having only just completed high school, Darcy chooses to spend her enormous advance on moving to an apartment in New York and starting work on the next instalment of her “Afterworlds” trilogy. She soon establishes herself in YA writer’s scene and falls for another exciting new YA author, Imogen Grey.
The second story is Darcy’s Afterworld novel. Darcy’s novel is about Lizzie, the only survivor of a mass shooting by terrorists. Although Lizzie survived she can now see the dead and can cross over to the ‘flipside’ where she is to act as a ‘psychopomp’ assisting the recently deceased to find peace.
The Afterworld story in itself is fantastic but having it contained within Darcy’s narrative is compelling. Books that try to tell two stories in one can sometimes struggle to maintain two distinct voices but Scott Westerfeld has manage to capture both Darcy and Lizzie as independent voices in their own excellent stories.
