E-galley Review: After Life by Gayle Forman

Posted January 4, 2025 by Lisa Mandina in Review / 18 Comments

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

E-galley Review:  After Life by Gayle FormanAfter Life by Gayle Forman
Published by Quill Tree Books on January 7, 2025
Genres: YA Contemporary
Pages: 272
Source: the publisher
Format: E-galley
My Rating: four-stars
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Blurb:

One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams.

Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now. 

This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?

This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.

“After Life is a masterful tale about a family coping with loss, showing the way grief affects us and people we don’t even know in ways we don’t see. Once I met Amber and her family, I didn’t want to let them go.” -—Brigid Kemmerer, New York Times bestselling author of Carving Shadows into Stone

“Forman is a master at making her readers fall in love—with a girl whose life is over, with a community of people in a small town who are barely surviving her loss, and with the incredible, surprising way everyone’s stories knit together into a heartbreaking and hopeful whole.” —E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud

I haven’t read this author in a while, although I loved her If I Stay series. This book has a bit of that same feel to it, with a daughter that had supposedly died when a car hit her bicycle. We don’t know that at the beginning of the story however. We just read about Amber riding her bike home from school at the end of her senior year. But when she shows up, no one is home. However when someone does come home, it is shocking, and it’s because to them, she died 7 years ago.

So Amber has to figure out what exactly is going on. Why is she back? Things of course have changed so much in those 7 years. Her parents are divorced, a common occurrence when a child dies. Her 10 year old sister is now the same age she was or the same age she thinks she is now. Her boyfriend seems to have become completely different from what she remembers. And her aunt, who used to be her mom’s best friend has left the country and hasn’t been back. An old friend of hers that she did something mean to when they were younger because she wanted to move on to new friends seems to be there for her now as well.

But that’s when I got the hint that maybe it was more than just her being back from the dead. Her friend Dina said she couldn’t go in somewhere with Amber, and I was thinking that was weird. Was Dina alive? Or was Dina not allowed to go into that place because her mother was a cop, so obviously she’d keep her away from unsafe people/places?

When we got Amber’s POV it was in first person. But there were other people in the book we got their POV in 3rd person. Such as her sister. Some people who seemed kind of random too. A teacher, a school photographer, etc. The way those people filled in the story was good, and all the little connections that seemed random were perfect. I really liked how it all fit together at the end, making the story more than just a girl back from the dead, and adding some philosophical aspects to the story. Even getting a mystery solved by all these little puzzle pieces and seemingly unrelated connections.

I definitely can’t wait to share this one with my students, and I could see it being a possible Gateway nominee in a year or two!

Gayle Forman is an award-winning author and journalist, who has written several bestselling novels for children and adults, including #1 New York Times bestselling novel If I Stay, which has been translated into more than forty languages and in 2014 was adapted into a major motion picture staring Chloe Grace Moretz which grossed nearly $80 million dollars. Gayle has created an identity of crafting captivating and thought-provoking literature no matter what genre or audience she is writing for.

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18 responses to “E-galley Review: After Life by Gayle Forman

  1. This one sounds like quite the emotional and philosophical read. That premise sounds interesting with her coming back from the dead. That part with the little puzzle pieces coming together sounds well done.

    • Lisa Mandina

      The author’s other books have been popular in the past, although I feel it’s been a bit since I’ve had any new ones.

  2. I remember wanting to try this author’s books in the past. Her coming back after 7 years and seeing how people went on with their lives without her would be interesting. I’ll have to give this a go.

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