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67th out of 401 books
—
274 voters
Elsewhere
by
Gabrielle Zevin (Goodreads Author)
Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere's museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe's psychiatric practice. Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has...more
Paperback, 271 pages
Published
by Bloomsbury
(first published January 1st 2005)
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(showing
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3,000)
Sep 14, 2009
Kim
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone
Recommended to Kim by:
Me
Shelves:
the-kids-are-all-right,
holy-shit
You know what sucks?
When you get 53 (YES, FIFTY THREE) pages into a book and realize that you've read it before. That blows.
You know what doesn't suck?
You really like said book. I mean, it's been a good 8 months, and I was still hazy about the plot throughout the whole book, but it's SUCH a good story that I didn't mind kinda knowing the plot.
Liz is 15 and is a hit and run victim. She wakes up on the S.S. Nile (cute, huh?) and it takes her a bit but she finds out she's died and then ends up in...more
When you get 53 (YES, FIFTY THREE) pages into a book and realize that you've read it before. That blows.
You know what doesn't suck?
You really like said book. I mean, it's been a good 8 months, and I was still hazy about the plot throughout the whole book, but it's SUCH a good story that I didn't mind kinda knowing the plot.
Liz is 15 and is a hit and run victim. She wakes up on the S.S. Nile (cute, huh?) and it takes her a bit but she finds out she's died and then ends up in...more
Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com
Stories about the Afterlife have always appealed to me. There are thousands upon thousands of interpretations out there about what, exactly, happens to a person after they die. ELSEWHERE is a new spin on an old topic, but it manages to bring emotion, realism, and entertainment to something that is, in most circumstances, a very depressing situation. To me, ELSEWHERE is a combination of Mitch Albom's THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN and Alice Sebold's THE LOVE...more
Stories about the Afterlife have always appealed to me. There are thousands upon thousands of interpretations out there about what, exactly, happens to a person after they die. ELSEWHERE is a new spin on an old topic, but it manages to bring emotion, realism, and entertainment to something that is, in most circumstances, a very depressing situation. To me, ELSEWHERE is a combination of Mitch Albom's THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN and Alice Sebold's THE LOVE...more
16 likes · like · see review
Nov 29, 2009
Tatiana
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2009,
children-s-middle-school
A rather disappointing book. Having read and liked Zevin's "Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac," I expected "Elsewhere" to be a book of the same high quality. No luck.
"Elsewhere" is not strictly a bad book. It raises an always interesting question - what happens when you die? In the book you move to Elsewhere where you age back (instead of getting older you get younger) while growing up mentally, until you become a baby and then you are sent back to earth to live another life. The book is about comi...more
"Elsewhere" is not strictly a bad book. It raises an always interesting question - what happens when you die? In the book you move to Elsewhere where you age back (instead of getting older you get younger) while growing up mentally, until you become a baby and then you are sent back to earth to live another life. The book is about comi...more
24 likes · like · see review
ISBN: 0374320918
Elsewhere by Gabriel Zevin
Do you want to see the latest Picasso paintings? Well you just spring by his gallery and see his new paintings. Maybe you can say hey to Marilyn Monroe at her psychiatric center. Well if you want to do all that you’d take a cruise there. But of course there’s a catch to it all, and Liz Hall knows all about that because under her circumstances she can do all of that because she’s a fifteen-year-old girl and she’s dead.
The curious adventurous Liz Hall is...more
Elsewhere by Gabriel Zevin
Do you want to see the latest Picasso paintings? Well you just spring by his gallery and see his new paintings. Maybe you can say hey to Marilyn Monroe at her psychiatric center. Well if you want to do all that you’d take a cruise there. But of course there’s a catch to it all, and Liz Hall knows all about that because under her circumstances she can do all of that because she’s a fifteen-year-old girl and she’s dead.
The curious adventurous Liz Hall is...more
13 likes · like · see review
Aug 07, 2007
Jennie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
nonrequired-work-reading
Liz is more than confused when she wakes up one morning to find herself on a cruise ship with a girl she’s never met before in the top bunk. But then she starts to remember being hit by a car as she rode her bike to the mall and eventually is brought up to the observation deck to watch her own funeral.
The boat eventually lands in Elsewhere, where dead people get a day younger every day until they are taken down the river back to Earth to be reborn. In Elsewhere, Liz meets up with the grandmother...more
The boat eventually lands in Elsewhere, where dead people get a day younger every day until they are taken down the river back to Earth to be reborn. In Elsewhere, Liz meets up with the grandmother...more
The whole "relationship" (if you can even call it that) between Liz and Owen frustrated me. How could Owen's marriage have been so happy if after only two weeks of being reunited with his wife he didn't want her anymore? Argh!
The story moves quickly from one event to the next without setting anything up or wrapping anything up. It is hard to care about the characters or events this way.
The story moves quickly from one event to the next without setting anything up or wrapping anything up. It is hard to care about the characters or events this way.
12 likes · like · see review
Mar 10, 2009
Gregory Baird
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2009-booklist,
young-adult
Maybe if I were still thirteen I would think differently, but Elsewhere reads like a Hallmark movie of the week. It's sappy and hopelessly predictable. While Zevin's depiction of the afterlife is kind of creative, it's mostly confounding (turns out death is just as routine and dull as everyday life ... except that dogs talk). Her jokes either fall flat or induce a lengthy groan, but are never really amusing. And while Zevin can occasionally turn a phrase in an interesting way, for the most par...more
15 likes · like · see review
What is there to say about Elsewhere? Give me a second and I'll come up with it. Oh, it has a promising premise. It is at times heartbreaking and funny. Mostly it is disappointing. I'd heard good things about this book from another blog I read constantly, it was a YA book, and I couldn't wait to read it. The prologue is amazing, a funny, little dog running around trying to deal with her owners death. Hilarious and strangely touching. And then it switches to Lizzy, the main character of the book,...more
What is the story? Elsewhere is an idea spun into a book and then left floundering as the author seeks to fill pages. There is no story here - no cohesive plot that moves the thing forward. The main character, Lizzy, dies at fifteen and is transported to Elsewhere, a land where all people who die go. In Elsewhere you live just like on Earth, only you age backward. Cool concept and idea and there are so many avenues the author could have taken this! Instead she enumerates on her world a little an...more
9 likes · like · see review
Awesome. I love creative renditions of the afterlife, and seeing into the writer's imagination. This was a very whimsical, fascinating take on death and life - I loved the image of the tree: that life and death are like the roots and branches of a tree - neither can see the other, but they are both alive and connected. I loved the message that life after death is still real life, and that things move on, you keep growing, working and building relationships. The characters were great, especially...more
9 likes · like · see review
In a way, there is something about Zevin's view of the afterlife reminds me of the Florida vacations from my childhood: a leisurely drive through one sunny, pleasant day after another. If that was all there was to it, I probably wouldn't recommend this book so highly, but Zevin's story of a girl's growth after her own mortal life ends is anything but simple. The recently deceased arrive in Elsewhere (as the afterlife is known) with the understanding that they will be aging backwards to the point...more
I really enjoyed the premise of the book. However, I didn't like that the writing style was in the present tense through-out the entire book. I thought the characters weren't developed enough and felt very flat to me. Each character had the same manner of speaking and same sense of humor, so they all were basically the same characters but with different names or genders and different backgrounds. But then again, I'm an adult reader and well aware that the book was intended for young-adults. In a...more
This book was amazing! It was one of my all time favorite books. Elsewhere tells the story of a fifteen year old girl, Elizabeth Hall, who is hit and killed in a bicycle accident and wakes up to find herself traveling on a ship called the SS Nile. She meets a girl who had been shot in the head and a famous musician who had died of a drug overdose. After watching her own funeral, Liz realizes that she is truly dead and it isn't a dream. Soon afterwards, she and the other passengers arrive in wha...more
I honestly don't know what to make of this book. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. It's just.. so-so, I guess. Not the kind of book that I would usually read, but I managed to finish it.
I was honestly a little uncomfortable with the premise of the book when I first started, and I think religious people in general would be too. It's a little controversial in that sense, I guess, where it deals with what happens after you die. But that aside, it was an interesting and creative rendition...more
I was honestly a little uncomfortable with the premise of the book when I first started, and I think religious people in general would be too. It's a little controversial in that sense, I guess, where it deals with what happens after you die. But that aside, it was an interesting and creative rendition...more
Have you ever wondered if there was somewhere you go when your life ends? When your eyes close on earth, do they open somewhere else? Elsewhere By: Gabrielle Zevin tells about this mysterious place one goes after death and the wonders that it contains. Elsewhere was a very interesting and thought provoking book. There were many mind twisting concepts like how in Elsewhere you age from an adult to a baby, or that there is even a place you go after death. I have to admit the description and reali...more
Upon reading the blurb, the first things that sprang to mind were Everlost AND the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Thankfully, reading ELSEWHERE was not the same experience I had when I saw that movie(to this day I do not think I have gone past its thirty-minute mark. I probably have no taste, but you have to admit that Brad Pitt as young/old was a little creepy.)
On to ELSEWHERE, I resolved to avoid making comparisons and simply enjoy the read. Am glad I did that! First, I love Elsewhere, it’s...more
On to ELSEWHERE, I resolved to avoid making comparisons and simply enjoy the read. Am glad I did that! First, I love Elsewhere, it’s...more
2 likes · like · see review
Plot: This story starts out when Liz wakes up on a boat. She searches around and finds that she is actually dead. Soon the boat arrives in Elsewhere, a place where dead people go who eventually age backwards until they are babies, and then they are sent down a certain river and are born. Her dead grandmother comes and picks her up from the boat and takes her home. She has a such hard time getting over not seeing her friends or family that she decides to dive to a place called the Well. The Well...more
2 likes · like · see review
Liz thinks she's dreaming when wakes up on a luxurious ocean liner called the S.S. Nile and finds herself surrounded by beautiful blue water for miles and miles around. The boat is taking her, and others like her, to a magical place called Elsewhere, where it's warm and breezy, and you might just find Marilyn Monroe working at the local psychiatric center. It's a place where all who die go.
She handles her death very badly, lashing out at her grandmother, Betty, who is now younger than her mother...more
She handles her death very badly, lashing out at her grandmother, Betty, who is now younger than her mother...more
Apr 13, 2011
joy *the clean-reader extraordinaire*
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
calm and thoughtful
funny, unpredictable, stand-out original
*be happy now -- don't wait until you're grown-up, or done with college, or the kids move out
*know who you are
*think, think, think
*look both ways before crossing the street
i can see why reader-teens rave about this one, because it asks awesome, deep questions about life in a thoroughly roundabout way
that's a snowglobe on the cover, not a crystal ball, by the way. i didn't pick this up for awhile because somehow i thought there were seanc...more
funny, unpredictable, stand-out original
*be happy now -- don't wait until you're grown-up, or done with college, or the kids move out
*know who you are
*think, think, think
*look both ways before crossing the street
i can see why reader-teens rave about this one, because it asks awesome, deep questions about life in a thoroughly roundabout way
that's a snowglobe on the cover, not a crystal ball, by the way. i didn't pick this up for awhile because somehow i thought there were seanc...more
5 likes · like · see review
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Have you ever what would happen to you after you died? What would life be like without everything you knew & loved? What if you died in a tragedy, a hit and run situation? Elsewhere, is a captivating wonderful book that really speaks to you. Lizzie the main character of the book is hit and ran by a taxi as a highschooler. What happens when she wants to live and she didn't get to do anything she wanted to do? One day shes alive, and the next day she's dead. All she wanted to do was fall in lo...more
Feb 02, 2008
Ellen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
YA readers, 11 and up
Oh, to be thirteen again, if only long enough to be able to read this book with fresh eyes. It would certainly have been a favorite, with its blend of teenage angst, magical realism, and humor. Gabrielle Zevin has a pitch-perfect understanding of her audience.
After fifteen year-old Liz is killed in hit and run accident, she finds herself on a boat to Elsewhere. Though she faces difficulty in acclimating, she meets a host of colorful characters who help, including the maternal grandmother she nev...more
After fifteen year-old Liz is killed in hit and run accident, she finds herself on a boat to Elsewhere. Though she faces difficulty in acclimating, she meets a host of colorful characters who help, including the maternal grandmother she nev...more
Dec 15, 2007
Lily
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who wonder about afterlife
This book was about a teenage girl by the name of Elizabeth ( Liz ). She wakes up one day and she thinks she's dreaming, however she's really dead and in Elsewhere. Elsewhere is where everyone goes after they die. In Elsewhere, everyone gets younger. Liz meets her grandmother Betty, whom she never met before. She spends most of her time at the Observation Deck trying to see what is happening with her family back at Earth. She doesn't llike being in Elsewhere and tries to find ways of going back...more
2 likes · like · see review
Sep 28, 2007
Casey
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
children-or-young-adult
I read this because my little sister told me I had to. I am easily influenced.
First, I was completely and totally infuriated by this book because rotting away on my computer is a story I started about a guy who dies and ends up in a heaven that looks a lot like earth, and he discovers that God basically has no control over anything (He feels really bad about it, but just sort of wishes everyone would leave him alone). Well, there are parts of Elsewhere that are eerily similar to my writing. Oh...more
First, I was completely and totally infuriated by this book because rotting away on my computer is a story I started about a guy who dies and ends up in a heaven that looks a lot like earth, and he discovers that God basically has no control over anything (He feels really bad about it, but just sort of wishes everyone would leave him alone). Well, there are parts of Elsewhere that are eerily similar to my writing. Oh...more
Jun 03, 2008
Emily Smith
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Emily by:
Denise
The author has created a beautifully complete afterlife and characters within it. I think it's a beautiful imagined world, making me think of the tv shows Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies, as well as Susan Cooper's Seaward. It's also an important reminder that living is the journey, not the destination.
This is a character rather than plot-driven story, enhanced by the world created for the characters. If you expect the sort of story that is the same as a typical Hollywood movie, you will be bor...more
This is a character rather than plot-driven story, enhanced by the world created for the characters. If you expect the sort of story that is the same as a typical Hollywood movie, you will be bor...more
Jul 31, 2008
Kelly
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone!
Recommended to Kelly by:
One of the women in our bookclub
Well ladies, I finished this books in 2 days flat! That is how much I enjoyed it. See when I really like a book I CAN complete it. Anyhow, I have to disagree with Lenette totally. I think this was not only a very interesting view on the afterlife but a very positive take on it as well. I did not find this book at all depressing but rather uplifting and rather funny at times. The story was so unique. I have also read the book Lovely Bones. I fully enjoyed that book as well, but it was a much dark...more
Mar 31, 2009
Adriana
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
ya-death-dying-self-identity
I read this via an audio CD version. The narrator was great; she really captured the voice and feeling of the main character. The story centers around almost-fifteen year old Liz. It starts out with her death after she is hit by a taxi cab while riding her bike to the mall to meet her best friend for some shopping. Liz ends up in Elsewhere, which is basically a version of heaven, but everyone starts to age backwards until they become babies and are sent back to earth to live out a new life. At f...more
2 likes · like · see review
This book by Gabirelle Zevin is definitely my most favorite book of all time. Elsewhere gives you a whole new view on what heaven is like. It was a book that I wasn't able to put down. Elsewhere takes you on an adventure with Liz (main character) who dies in a car crash and is off to Elsewhere. A place where she meets her grandma, Betty. I thought it was really fascinating to see how ghosts communicate with humans, through water. She went on many adventures with her new live, Owen. The way Zevin...more
Feb 25, 2008
Shannon
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
great-books-for-teens
Endings are sad simply because they are endings. This book begins at the end and shows us why endings aren't sad - because they may signal the end to one thing, but they inevitable also signal the beginning to something else. Liz is almost sixteen and she's dead. Dealing with death isn't easy; after all, she's so young and there's so much she'll never get to do. After death she finds herself in Elsewhere, and she learns that being dead really isn't all that much different from being alive. This...more
Oct 22, 2012
MaRissa Dobson
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everone!
love love love love!!!
"Esther Smiles. ' I think of it (life and death) like a tree, because every tree is really two trees. There's the tree with the branches that everyone sees, and then there is the upside down root tree,growing the opposite way. So earth is the branches, growing up to the sky, and elsewhere is the roots, growing down in the opposing but perfect symmetry. the branches don't think much about the roots, and maybe the roots don't think much about the branches, but all the time, t...more
"Esther Smiles. ' I think of it (life and death) like a tree, because every tree is really two trees. There's the tree with the branches that everyone sees, and then there is the upside down root tree,growing the opposite way. So earth is the branches, growing up to the sky, and elsewhere is the roots, growing down in the opposing but perfect symmetry. the branches don't think much about the roots, and maybe the roots don't think much about the branches, but all the time, t...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The afterlife | 5 | 27 | Jun 14, 2013 10:51am | |
| Mrs. Gallagher's ...: Book review | 2 | 8 | Jun 10, 2013 11:54am | |
| Mrs. Gallagher's ...: Kaitlin Surber | 1 | 9 | Nov 17, 2012 07:21pm | |
| Questions | 4 | 41 | Aug 31, 2012 08:39am |
Gabrielle Zevin has published six novels. Her debut, Margarettown, was a selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program. The Hole We’re In was on Entertainment Weekly's Must List and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Every day newspaper articles chronicle families battered by the recession, circling the drain in unemployment and debt or scra...more
More about Gabrielle Zevin...
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“There will be other lives.
There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands.
And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecision and revisions.
And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles.
And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk.
And there will be other lives for a man you don't recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything.
Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess.”
—
222 people liked it
There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands.
And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecision and revisions.
And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles.
And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk.
And there will be other lives for a man you don't recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything.
Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess.”
“On, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human life is a beautiful mess.”
—
211 people liked it
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