Afterworlds

“The real world worked differently than stories. In a novel you always knew the moment when something Happened, when someone Changed. But real life was full of gradual, piecemeal, continuous transformation. It was full of accidents and undefinables, and things that just happened on their own.”

I'm not really sure how to review this book because it really is two books in one. On the one had we have Darcy's story that focuses on her journey to publish her debut novel Afterworlds. Then we have Lizzie (the main character in Afterworlds) and her story after the attack in Dallas. These stories are clearly separated since odd chapters are Darcy and even chapters are Lizzie with the black top and bottom bars. The top and bottom black bars on Lizzie's story were incredibly helpful when it came to reading this book, since there was not a huge different in the writing style between the two stories.

The idea for this story was absolutely fascinating. I really enjoyed how we got to see Darcy on her journey to publication and seeing how she worried about all the little things in the book. We even got behind the scenes information about the book and what was going to happen to Lizzie. However, while I loved this foray into the publishing industry, I feel like things went a little to easy for Darcy. She did not really have the hardships I associate with the industry. Imogen kind of touches on this luck towards the end of the book, but there were still some aspects of the book that seemed too good to be true when it came to Darcy's journey.

As for Lizzie's story, from the start when the attack happens at the airport, I was drawn into what would happen to her and Yama. I loved the world that was created with the Underworld and the ghosts. I think my preference toward the supernatural, fantasy type books is what made Lizzie's story more appealing to me, but once we got further into Darcy's story, she did become more interesting to me and I began to enjoy her story just as much as Lizzie.

One of the things that is really weird to me is how throughout Darcy's story we hear about Untitled Patel and she even writes the draft of it in this book. But then Afterworlds ends and we never learn the conclusion to the story between Lizzie, Yama, Yami, and even Mindy. I really loved these characters and the ending of those chapters left their stories very open. As far as I know there is no sequel in the works for this book, so I'm slightly annoyed that we will never learn what happens to Darcy post publication or what will happen to Lizzie and Yama.

I had a hard time rating this book. 2.5 stars.

My first Scott Westerfeld book. I have never heard anything but great reviews about his works. I was excited to be drawn into the two different worlds of this story. Both plot lines intrigued me, both characters sounded so likable, and finally I was reading Scott Westerfeld.

I've never been so disappointed in my life.

The writing was weak, the characters annoying, the romance in Lizzie's story had instalove, but at the same time no live at all her relationship with Yamaraj (or however you spell his name) felt nonexistent. Darcy was impractical and naive, which made it hard for me to like her. I preferred Darcy's story to Lizzie's, but they both didn't work.

I was really excited and hesitant going into this book. This book is pretty much made up of two different stories and they could be separate books. Being separate, they work on their own but are better together. The first one is about the author of the second one. The second one is the book Afterworlds.

Darcy is this fresh out of high school student that ended up writing an entire novel in a month. (It says it was done in November which I am assuming was for NaNoRiMo). The first perspective is in Darcy's as she learns about who she is as a writer and as a human being. It is pretty much her life in New York as a newly to be published writer. Full of writing deadlines and writing mock-ups. She ends up meeting lots of authors and deals with the struggle of first loves. It was really interesting to read about Darcy. I didn't expect half of the things that she did to happen. You learned about some chapters of Afterworlds before it happens. You get to see her thought process in why she wrote some things for her novel. It was like a behind the scenes for an author that goes through writing revisions.

Now onto Afterworlds, it was a really interesting story. I liked the idea of the afterworld (ha) and how the main character Lizzie dealt with it. As stated a lot in the Darcy's story, the first chapter was very good and set the scene for the rest of the entire story. I really enjoyed reading about Lizzie and how she grows throughout Afterworlds. I do feel like she was left in the dark a lot of the book which I don't think was good for her because it brought on a lot of problems and they could of been avoided if someone would of just taught her about the damn world she is now apart of. I assume that is the growing part of her character development though.

Onto the main man, Yamaraj. He is permanently in the afterworld by choice. He is not dead but has been living there for a very long time. He followed his sister after she died and decided to stay with her in the afterworld and look after ghosts that have also passed. I wasn't as interested in his character as I thought I would be. They didn't go that much in depth about who he was and his past. We only learned a little bit. I guess since this book wasn't really about the romance between him and Lizzie. It was just something that helped the story along. I wasn't very sold on their “relationship”.

I was anticipating the end of Afterworlds because Darcy spent a very long time trying to make the ending the way it should of ended. I really enjoyed how it ended and brought the story all together. I think it was more important to the character development of Lizzie for how it ended instead of the way Darcy had it originally. I think it was a better ending than the other she talked about in her portion of the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed Afterworlds and I liked the idea of the two stories. I think Scotty Westerfeld wrote it really well and intertwined the two together beautifully. As the story went on, I was more interested in Lizzie's story but that doesn't mean that I did not like Darcy's. This entire book was 600 pages and the time just flew by. It was a pretty easy read and I enjoyed it all. I would recommend this to read.