A fantasy premise turns an expected future upside down: Liz must find her place in an afterlife where people grow younger. Her adjustment brings grief and frustration alongside friendship, love and personal choices.
More about this book
Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver's license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. At first, Liz was all sad and gloomy, but will she ever be happy again and learn that love can happen anywhere? [Elsewhere][1]
[1]: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/359410.Elsewhere
deathafterlifegriefpersonal choicesfriendshiplovelearning and growththird-person narrationcharacter developmentimagined world
FictionNovel
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Themes in Context
Death and a second kind of life
After Liz dies, she enters an imagined afterlife where people age backwards and she must adapt to a life she did not choose.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: The afterlife is presented as a speculative setting for considering death and the meaning of living, rather than as a claim about what happens after death.
Talk about: Does the backwards life change what Liz comes to value?
Choices and relationships
Friendship, love and other relationships remain part of life in Elsewhere, where characters continue to make choices and learn.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: The story treats Elsewhere as a place where relationships and personal choices still matter, despite the unusual rules of its world.
Talk about: If relationships continue in this changed setting, what makes them important to the characters?
Narrative style
The story uses omniscient third-person narration and presents its imagined world matter-of-factly, while characters are developed gradually.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: This approach may help the unusual setting feel straightforward while allowing readers to get to know the characters over time.
Talk about: How does the matter-of-fact narration shape your sense of this imagined place?
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Why It May Be Worth Reading
The imagined afterlife gives the story room to explore how loss, relationships and choices might matter in a life unlike the one Liz expected.
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What Deserves Attention
Death is central: Liz dies in a hit-and-run, and the story follows her in the afterlife. Grief and loss are explicit themes, so the premise may prompt questions or strong feelings.
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A Conversation Worth Having
If Liz’s new life offers possibilities she did not expect, what might help her decide whether to accept them?
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Reading Approach
You could read together at a pace that leaves room to pause around the death and grief themes. Invite your reader to share what stands out, without expecting a particular reaction.
Confidence & Basis
Theme indicators describe how the book presents a topic; they are not a verdict on the whole book or your family's values. Confidence reflects how much book-specific material was checked. Only part of the book information was available, so some details remain unconfirmed.
What remains unconfirmed
Death and a second kind of life: The summaries do not establish how the story resolves Liz's adjustment or how different readers may respond to its afterlife premise.
Choices and relationships: The available plot accounts do not show how particular relationships develop or what outcomes follow from individual choices.
Narrative style: Some details of this treatment remain unclear.
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