Afterworlds Review

Dear Readers,

I recently read the book Afterworlds and had some interesting thoughts on the book after reading. The book is written by Scott Westerfeld (Author of the Uglies Series) and is split into two parts. The first part is about a girl named Darcy and her experience after getting a 50K publishing deal after writing a young adult novel in a month. She moves to New York City to meet other authors and use that time to write the sequel to her book. The second part of  the novel is the actual story that she wrote which is about Lizzie, a teenager who after almost getting harmed in a terrorist attack discovers that she has ability to travel to place called Afterworlds, talk to ghost, and basically become a ghost herself.

Darcy's Story

The Main story is about Darcy and her experience in New York City. I enjoyed this part immensely because of how much I enjoy writing and New York City. I enjoyed the Meta part of this novel as well because it pokes fun at many different authors and writing related events and activities ( John Green Spoof, Nanowrimo Spoof, etc.). Besides the references to relevant authors and writing activities, Darcy having an actual reason to live in an expensive apartment in Manhattan and actually having a realistic budget and money concern (unlike Sex and The City or Glee), and writers real struggles of controversy, worry about book releases, and writers block; something I really enjoy about this book is Darcy's nontraditional love interest. Darcy is a lesbian and falls in love with a fellow writer Imogene. Darcy and Imogene's relationship and struggle in the book is kinda cliche, but creative elements to the story make their relationship something worth enjoying. I really enjoy Darcy' story line because I feel it really does go into the actuality of being a up and coming author at such a young age. Darcy is a very likable character and I like how Darcy uses things from her own life to help create her soon to be published book.

Lizzie's Story

The Lizzy story was less appealing to me. I like sci-fi and fantasy books, but I am very picky about the kinds I read. It has to have a interesting, but understandable story. While the story was interesting, it felt a bit too complicated for me. As far as I can tell the story is about a girl named Lizzie who discovers she can travel to a place called the Afterworld and talk to ghost. She ends up meeting Yamaraj, a cute boy who is like her in the sense that he has powers like her, meets the ghost of her moms childhood friend named Mindy, and tries to help get revenge on Mindy's killer as well as stop a man trying to capture Mindy and other ghost. The story is confusing and kinda skip worthy. In all honesty I was trying to speed read through those portions of the book. That may be though because of  my pickyness with fantasy literature. If you like fantasy content you may enjoy this, it just was not my cup of tea.

Final Verdict

Afterworlds is a good book, though I don't think it is my favorite I did enjoy it a lot. I liked seeing Darcy's experiences as a New York City author. I enjoyed her and Imogene's relationship even if it did contain a lot of cliche tropes of typical straight relationships. The fantasy book is okay and decent at best, but the Darcy story line makes up for it. I did however, in the fantasy part, enjoy Mindy and Lizzie's friendship. All in all I would recommend this book, I don't know if I will be re reading it again anytime soon but if you like romance, fantasy, realistic fictions, drama, and meta-ness, then I suggest this book would be to your liking.

-Jessica