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1873 ratings, 4.04 average rating, 564 reviews
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published
May 15th 2007
(first published 2005)
by Square Fish
binding
Paperback, 304 pages
isbn
0312367465
(isbn13: 9780312367466)
description
Elsewhere is where 15-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different from it. Here Liz will age ...more
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avg 4.04
Read in February, 2008
recommended to Kim by:
Merecommends it for: anyone
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 through 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 ...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 through 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 ...more
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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 ...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 ...more
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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
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Read in May, 2008
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
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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 adventuro...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 adventuro...more
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10 comments
Read in May, 2006
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 grand...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 grand...more
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This book was the best book ever. It was very fantasy like. It was a very unusual seetting it was where dead people live a second life. I stongly suggest it it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!
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7 comments
Read in July, 2008
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
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone
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
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Read in January, 2008
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...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...more
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Read in December, 2007
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
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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 m...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 m...more
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Read in June, 2008
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 i...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 i...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to Kelly by:
One of the women in our bookclubrecommends it for: anyone!
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 mu...more
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Read in February, 2008
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. ...more
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Read in May, 2007
At the age of 15, Lizzie is killed in a car accident and discovers that the afterlife is more like the suburbs of Florida instead of the Pearly gates. People live, work and do most of what the living do. One important difference is that they all age backwards until they are infants and are reborn. Lizzie is suffering from a sort of depression and post traumatic stress from dying so young and her grandmother, her favorite rock star and her new friend she met help her cope with life after death....more
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Read in November, 2008
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
12 and up
This is easily my favorite book ever. I know alot people have a hard time picking their 'favorite book' or whatever, but this is my favorite. Elizabeth is an amazing person and her grandmother's personality got me from the first time she was introduced into the story. You might not want to read this if you're a strong believer in God and Heaven because the author introduces a whole new concept, that I think is incredible.
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Read in March, 2008
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.
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currently-reading (on 139 people's shelves)
young-adult (on 89 people's shelves)
ya (on 53 people's shelves)
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teen (on 21 people's shelves)
death (on 12 people's shelves)
2008 (on 10 people's shelves)
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quotes from this book
"Sorry but nothing of much importance ever happened to me...I'm just a girl who forgot to look both ways before crossing the street."
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