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Kim's Reviews > Elsewhere
Elsewhere
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by
You know what sucks?
When you get 53 (YES, FIFTY THREE) pages into a book and realize that you've read it before. That blows.
You know what doesn't suck?
You really like said book. I mean, it's been a good 8 months, and I was still hazy about the plot throughout the whole book, but it's SUCH a good story that I didn't mind kinda knowing the plot.
Liz is 15 and is a hit and run victim. She wakes up on the S.S. Nile (cute, huh?) and it takes her a bit but she finds out she's died and then ends up in Elsewhere. I think Elsewhere could be whatever your spiritual affiliation wants it to be. Limbo, Heaven, squatting at St. Pete's doorstep, a Quentin Tarantino filmfest....whatever...
Here's the kicker.. in Elsewhere you age backwards until you're a baby again and then you're returned to Earth. The ultimate in recycling, huh?
Now, don't you think that that is a total rip off? I mean, okay... you're just starting to feel out who you are and then you die and everything goes in reverse. So, you hardly have time to define yourself and by the time you're 21, you're really nine... WTF?
Gabrielle Zevin does a wonderful job with this plot, the characters you meet are well developed and the story made me start crying on public transportation. The last three chapters... racking sobs, I tell you... Even the second time around.
My one peeve is the clumsy use of present tense structure. It may be just me, let me rephrase that... it probably isn't clumsy, but it distracted me from the narrative and once I noticed that distraction it was hard to avoid.
Okay, I have to share this... this is when the eyes started to tear and the lips started to tremble:
"There will be other lives. There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms,for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands. And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and for Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecisions and revisions."
And none of that stuff made me weepy or sentimental when it happened to me, but you bet I'll be thinking like this when my daughter hits that age.
So, if I forget that I read this, please don't remind me... I wouldn't mind another go around.
When you get 53 (YES, FIFTY THREE) pages into a book and realize that you've read it before. That blows.
You know what doesn't suck?
You really like said book. I mean, it's been a good 8 months, and I was still hazy about the plot throughout the whole book, but it's SUCH a good story that I didn't mind kinda knowing the plot.
Liz is 15 and is a hit and run victim. She wakes up on the S.S. Nile (cute, huh?) and it takes her a bit but she finds out she's died and then ends up in Elsewhere. I think Elsewhere could be whatever your spiritual affiliation wants it to be. Limbo, Heaven, squatting at St. Pete's doorstep, a Quentin Tarantino filmfest....whatever...
Here's the kicker.. in Elsewhere you age backwards until you're a baby again and then you're returned to Earth. The ultimate in recycling, huh?
Now, don't you think that that is a total rip off? I mean, okay... you're just starting to feel out who you are and then you die and everything goes in reverse. So, you hardly have time to define yourself and by the time you're 21, you're really nine... WTF?
Gabrielle Zevin does a wonderful job with this plot, the characters you meet are well developed and the story made me start crying on public transportation. The last three chapters... racking sobs, I tell you... Even the second time around.
My one peeve is the clumsy use of present tense structure. It may be just me, let me rephrase that... it probably isn't clumsy, but it distracted me from the narrative and once I noticed that distraction it was hard to avoid.
Okay, I have to share this... this is when the eyes started to tear and the lips started to tremble:
"There will be other lives. There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms,for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands. And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and for Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecisions and revisions."
And none of that stuff made me weepy or sentimental when it happened to me, but you bet I'll be thinking like this when my daughter hits that age.
So, if I forget that I read this, please don't remind me... I wouldn't mind another go around.
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Elsewhere.
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Reading Progress
February 20, 2008
– Shelved
February 20, 2008
– Shelved as:
the-kids-are-all-right
Started Reading
February 27, 2008
–
Finished Reading
May 13, 2009
– Shelved as:
holy-shit
Comments Showing 1-19 of 19 (19 new)
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I like literally just did this with this book, but it's okay, because I love it :)
that always happens to me! i swear almost every book i buy and get excited about i read like the first couple of pages of it and realize that i read it before!but for me, i really don't mind because i love rereading books. especially ones like this book, because i think every time i reread this book it gets 100x better! :D
That quote is a reference to T.S. Eliot, the king of all references. And anyone who quotes T.S. Eliot has my attention. I just might read it.
You know what's even worse? When your eldest daughter, home for a visit, is ransacking your bookshelves for something to take home with her and finds four copies of the same book. No way to explain that with any credibility!
Ha!!! I know that feeling.. :)
I just did this with this book. I realized about 70 pages in that I'd already read it, but thought, "why not?"
I reread this book on purpose every couple of years. It made such a huge impression on me the first time. I always know if I'm stuck for something good to read, this will still fit the bill. It never grows old...how's that for irony?
I had written exactly the same quote in my very special "Book of Quotes"!
I know I read it before. But it鈥檚 been quite a while and I still love it. :)
Great story, 53 pages in and then realised - can empathise with that, but I'm certain I haven't read this one - thanks for the review, I loved AJ Kikry, so here goes!!
Nothing wrong in reading it twice!!
I had to google the plot yesterday just to remember the name of this book! Now I have to read it again
Ha! I read a book ,raved about how deep it was. I wanted to go over my book tracking everything I read looking for other titles by this same writer only to see i had the very same title listed(and that i loved it) only a couple of years before.how?
Not sure if this happens with all of us, but this has surely happened to me more than once. It鈥檚 the primary reason I鈥檝e joined 欧宝娱乐 (as least initially), because I couldn鈥檛 keep track of what I鈥檝e read for the most part. It鈥檚 even happened with television. 鈥淗ey, this is familiar鈥�. Anywho, read it twice and loved it twice? Sold!! 鈾ワ笍
I had the same thing- except I think I read it back in 2006 and actually owned it, then when I started reading was like this feels familiar鈥�. Still spent a whole lovely day reading it and it was a joy 鉂わ笍
Been there, done that. Keep saying to self, sounds familiar! 馃挜
The sad thing is, at this moment I don't remember what book it was. You'd think having read it twice, I'd at least recall the title. But no. I guess I won't figure out what it was until I'm reading it again.