Series: Hereafter # 1
Genres: Paranormal, Ghost Story, Young Adult, Romance
Publisher: HarperCollins
Released: 7 June
2011
Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com Can there truly be love after death? Drifting in
the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is
that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life--or her actual
death--she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when
she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she
can do nothing but "will" him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment
of connection, she helps him survive. Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as
they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of
the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle
to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli
is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag
Amelia back into the ghost world . . . forever. Thrilling and evocative, with
moments of pure pleasure, "Hereafter" is a sensation you won't want
to miss.
For Fans Of: The Ghost
and the Goth, A Certain Slant of Light, and Spellbound
My Review: Hereafter was definitely one of those
books that I liked, but it didn’t necessarily stick with me. Amelia is such a lovable ghost. She is sweet and fun and I really enjoyed her
voice in the novel. The same can be said
for Joshua, he accepts all of the things that are happening to him with ease,
and you can really feel that his love for Amelia goes beyond simply lust. I think those were my favorite things about
this novel though. The ghost story is a
little bit dated, like I had seen it somewhere on television, or I had read it
somewhere before.
There was just something about Hereafter that made me keep saying to myself, “oh, well that’s
typical” like there was a checklist of things that belonged in a ghost-story
and the author went through and checked everything off that list and then sent
it off to her editor. It wasn’t that
there was anything bad about this book.
There wasn’t. It was well
written, and pretty light material.
There were definitely some tense moments where you wonder what will
happen next, but in the end I definitely felt like it was more typical than
most, it didn’t really exceed any expectations that I had for a story about a
ghost and a boy falling in love, but it did meet them.
