I'll warn people reading this review; I has been a while since I have read The Great Blue Yonder. This is mainly because I got rid of it extremely quickly after I finished it, because I disliked it so much. After I finished, my sister asked me if she would like it. I had just declared to myself that it was the worst book I had ever read. But I still told her to give it a chance. My exact words were that you spent the entire book waiting for something explosive and engaging to happen, but it never did.
That was the nicest review I ever gave this book.
The whole book seems to be waiting for something to happen, and I realize that that is kind of the whole point, but it made for a slow read. I found the whole afterlife very disappointing, as there was a Saint Peter, but there was no Heaven. There was only an ocean, The Great Blue Yonder, that spirits would walk into if they were ready. After Harry arrives in the waiting area near The Great Blue Yonder, he meets up with the ghost of a boy who has been there for an extremely long time, waiting for his mother. Harry is held back from going into the Great Blue Yonder by his lingering sense of guilt over having been mean to his sister.
Their big, dramatic, last argument was over PENS. She wouldn't let him use hers, so he had to go and buy his own. On the way, he gets hit by a truck.
(For the people who will call this a spoiler, all of this happens in the first few chapters, so I don't think it counts. If you think it is a spoiler, sorry.)
Anyways, that is one of the most disappointing and anti-climatic deaths I have ever read. Yes, death is tragic and it is possible to be hit by a truck because your sister wouldn't let you borrow a pen, but still. Also, there is a comment where someone says, "You shouldn't be here for another 70 years!" I didn't like that for some reason. I know death is random, but if it isn't supposed to happen, why did it?
Another strike against Harry is when he returns to Earth with his friend as a ghost, and he sees how his family and schoolmates are dealing with his death. There is a point where he eagerly waits to see if a teacher will die, and he is actually hoping that the teacher will! He also gets upset when he sees the tree that has been planted in his honor, and he gets even more upset when he sees the school bully showing remorse for his actions. Both of these things seem like good things to me, but Harry just got mad.
Harry and his friend cause all sorts of mischief before actually going to Harry's home and accomplishing what they set out to do.
I also found the ending upsetting, as it didn't answer most of my questions. I will not be rereading this book, and I wouldn't recommend it.