#ELSEWHERE A NOVEL FULL#

“Funny and pensive, happy and heartbreaking. Will captivate teens ready for a thought-provoking read. “An unusual premise and a thoughtful treatment make Zevin's first effort at writing for young adults a success. I loved reading the story of Liz's life (death?).” - Carolyn Mackler, author of The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things and Vegan Virgin Valentine

The concept is completely out there and yet the emotions are so weirdly realistic. “ Elsewhere is a funny, fast-paced, and fascinating novel. No plot synopsis can convey what a rich, wise spell this book casts.” - The New York Times Book Review “Zevin's touch is marvelously light even as she considers profundities, easily moving among humor, wisdom and lyricism. Provides much to think about and discuss.” - School Library Journal, Starred Review Surely guides readers through the bumpy landscape of strongly delineated characters dealing with the most difficult issue that faces all of us. “With an intriguing and well-developed premise, thoughtful characterization, and refreshing style, Zevin's poignant novel rewards readers with a view of death that celebrates the rich complexities of being alive.” - The Horn Book, Starred Review This inventive novel slices right to the bone of human yearning, offering up an indelible vision of life and death as equally rich sides of the same coin.” - Booklist, Starred Review How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?Ī book that transcends genre and category, Elsewhere is a modern YA classic. And now that she's dead, Liz is forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. Here, Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different.

Įlsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. You can't get sick and you’ll never get even one day older. Is it possible to grow up while getting younger? It’s brief, just 223 pages, but filled with memorable lines like this that can be appreciated by mothers, fathers or anyone who has ever loved: “You do not get to keep what is sweetest to you you only get to remember it from the vantage point of having lost it.Beloved by generations of readers, Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere is an original and unexpectedly moving novel about love, loss, and the meaning of it all from the New York Times best-selling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and The Storied Life of A. Summarizing the subsequent plot points simply doesn’t do “Elsewhere” justice. Those good vibes don’t last when the stranger forms close ties to one of the town’s residents, setting in motion the rest of the novel.

It pleased us to watch her see, taste, touch all we had to offer,” writes Schaitkin. So when a stranger shows up one day, the townspeople fall all over themselves to ingratiate themselves to her.

There’s a sense of comfort and peace in their town that trumps any curiosity they may have about what lies over the mountains. Phillips to arrive by train four times a year and bring them anything they can’t make or grow on their own. Residents of Vera’s hometown never leave except for the moms who vanish. The book’s other major theme is in the title.

#ELSEWHERE A NOVEL FULL#

Here she is nursing her child, Iris: “How could it be that she carried the potential to make me go, or to go herself one day? For the first time, I felt the full weight of our affliction: the peril of immense loss and the power of immense love, the two forces impossible to disentangle, for they were one and the same.” Vera’s mother disappeared when she was young and as the story progresses and Vera herself gives birth, the novel takes on an eerie quality, as she wonders if she’ll be next. “A mother was a chance to hate someone as much as you loved them, caring and wounding, a push and pull that only tightened the knot that bound you,” writes Schaitkin from the perspective of her first-person narrator, Vera, a young woman growing up in a nameless, secluded mountain town, where mothers mysteriously vanish from time to time, a fact of life that everyone calls an “affliction.” Schaitkin writes trenchantly about what it means to mother, the hardships and self-doubt balanced with the beauty and love. Mothers who read it will probably nod their heads the most. “Elsewhere,” the new novel from Alexis Schaitkin (“Saint X,” 2020), is best described as a dark fairy tale, with elements of the supernatural, but with something very real to say about a topic all readers can relate to in one way or another - motherhood. Sometimes it’s fun to read something that doesn’t fit in any particular category. “Elsewhere” by Alexis Schaitkin (Celadon Books)

Elsewhere a novel