From Goodreads:
Darcy Patel has put college and everything else on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. Arriving in New York with no apartment or friends she wonders whether she's made the right decision until she falls in with a crowd of other seasoned and fledgling writers who take her under their wings…
Told in alternating chapters is Darcy's novel, a suspenseful thriller about Lizzie, a teen who slips into the 'Afterworld' to survive a terrorist attack. But the Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead and as Lizzie drifts between our world and that of the Afterworld, she discovers that many unsolved - and terrifying - stories need to be reconciled. And when a new threat resurfaces, Lizzie learns her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she loves and cares about most.
My Review:
Afterworlds was such an awesome book! I loved the clash between the story of the writer, Darcy, a contemporary novel, with the novel that she wrote, a YA paranormal romance, going back and for each chapter between the two was just awesome!
I really enjoyed how Scott Westerfeld wrote Darcy to write Lizzie and how she discovered how the flipside, and the afterworlds, worked, and her powers, and that ghosts/memories of dead people, could be spotted by the fact that the have no shadow, and neither do their clothes! And I just love the world building!
And it was funny, because we were reading the edited book that Darcy was working on, not the early draft, but the one that was going to be published, because there were details and questions that Darcy wanted her in book, and then they were when we were reading it, and it was fantastic!
I really enjoyed both of the relationships in this book, the 2 YA authors, and the 2 shiners who help the dead people, and of whom one has been so for 3000 years, and the other, since the terrorist attack. They were just so awesome to read about, and both were left in good spots! Which is half why
I want more-because Darcy does have Untitled Patel, and then Imogen has her books, which I want to read more of, too! So I'd love a sequel!
Favourite lines: "'Are those still being written? I thought vampires were dead.' 'They're exceedingly hard to kill.'" Love this humor! "'As long as he
looks seventeen, nobody gets squicked. And as for English, everyone speaks English on TV, even the blood Klingons. Why shouldn't Hindu death gods?' 'You're babbling, Kiralee. Klingons speaking f**ing
Klingon. There's a language institute and everything. They're translating he plays of Shakespeare!' 'Right, I forgot. You can obliterate the cultures that told the first stories, but Elvish and Klingon must be maintained at all costs!'" Yes, preserve languages created for our entertainment! "Your hero chops up cats?" That is a strange question! "Well, I haven't worked out the
entire magic system yet. But the spells will all have evocative names: The Cushion Creeper, the Air Biscuit, the Brown Zephyr, and of course the dreaded Secretary of the Interior!" And as it's commented, the spells pretty much do the same thing! "Little-known face about the FBI: we're all special agents." Cool! "Your book is smart and beautiful. I want to have its sequels." Well, I think only Darcy can do that! "Yeah, I kind of suck at hesitating." Yeah, looks that way! "Stuff always happens at Darcy's parties, ever since fifth grade. Breakups, hookups, big fights, all the craziest stuff. But the weird part is, it never happens to
her. .... Well, so much for
that theory." Yeah, the never happening has stopped for Darcy! "'You know when you're watching a movie starring Angelina Jolie? And the character she's playing looks just like Angelina Jolie, right?' 'Um, yes. Because that's who she is.' 'No, she's a regular person in that world, not a movie star. But the other characters never mention that she looks exactly like Angelina Jolie. No one ever comes up to her on the street and says, "Can I have your autograph?"' 'Because that would mess up the movie.' 'Exactly. So when you case Angelina Jolie in a film, you're creating an alternate universe
in which actress Angelina Jolie does not exist. Because otherwise people would be noticing the resemblance all the time. This is what I call the Angelina Jolie Paradox.'' And then a continuation of this theory. "'I haven't even told you the paradoxical part. The only way
not to erase Angelina Jolie is to never cast her in a movie.' 'Which would
also erase Angelina Jolie.'" Yeah, I've noticed this, and it's pretty weird and awesome! "You make up fro bad writing humiliation that's coursing through my penguins." I love this, this joke that Darcy used the word veins, so Imogen replaced it with penguins for Darcy to go through to change! So funny! "A year ago, I was a senior in a high school kind of like this one, and I wondered what would happen if I wrote two thousand words a day for a month. Turns out, you wind up with sixty thousand words." This is so cute! But according to the book, people don't really share my humour! "See? That story had no setting, no theme,, hardly any conflict, and two characters called 'my friend' and 'his girlfriend.' And yet you all hate me right now because you will never, ever know what happens next. Plot rules." Agreed! "Her parents always said that big was safe. Though, as Nisha liked to point out, what they meant was safe for the Patels and not for the other people on the road." Which is not good for everybody else! Run and hide! "Never seen anyone get out of a trunk before?" Nope! "But instead of simply taking met to Hillier Lane in Palo Alto, the car wanted to dither and delay, to regale me with operating instructions and helpful hints and endless safety tips, as if it wanted to
get to know me." I just love the tone of this, so great! "Writerly superpowers, tiny but potent." Yes, go writing! "Wow. 'Parsley is also deadly.' I bet no one's ever said that before." Well, besides anyone going through what her mom is!
Yeah, this book was just fantastic, and like I said, I wouldn't mind a sequel!
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Read: November 3rd, 2014
Source: Publisher for Review
Reason Why: Sounded awesome, and it's a SAC 2014 Book!
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: September 23rd 2014
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5/5 Stars
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