The Shop Before Life

“People have made pretty incredible things in the prelife.”

Meet Faythe, a bored prelife individual who has finally had enough of her small world within the Rock she calls home and finally wants something more for herself. Just as she decides she wants to move on and be born on Earth, she's presented with something too tempting to turn down – the chance to work at The Shop Before Life, where all human traits are kept and given out to prelifers on their way to being born on Earth. Her first few days/weeks/months/years (time is relatively pointless in the prelife, after all) are full of ups and downs as she learns first the intricacies of her new position, and the numerous ways they can all go wrong with the least bit of effort. Without spoiling too much from this point on, just know that the more Faythe learns about The Shop, the Shopkeeper, the traits, and her new position in all of this, the more she realizes she doesn't know. Things happen in the great quest for knowledge, and poor Faythe has to unravel it all before things really go wrong – maybe even for good.

I really liked this book. The writing style was engaging and the dialogue was funny. I liked how unique the entire setting and premise was, especially. I'm usually such a dark-and-serious fantasy fan that this is normally something I would have passed up, but I found myself equal parts delighted and excited to read what comes next. It's definitely a fun fantasy book for all ages that I highly recommend.

Thanks to BookSirens for providing a copy of this great novel in exchange for an honest review.

10 month update: I just re-read this book with some friends and enjoyed it just as much the second time through. If my initial review wasn't enough to convince you to give this book a look, perhaps the fact that it's worth a re-read will!