Gabrielle Zavin – Elsewhere

Review by Linda Thomas July 2009.
It’s a story about life, death & rebirth.
Liz is 15years old when she is knocked down by a hit & run driver.
She wakes up in a cabin on the ship SS Nile, her roommate is Thandi, a young girl who was shot in the head. A fellow passenger is Curtis, a famous rock star & lead singer who was in a popgroup Liz loves. He is a junkie.
Liz is waiting to return home to her mum, dad & brother Alvy but Liz isn’t going home – Liz is dead as are her fellow passengers. As the ship docks, waiting for Liz on the quay is her grandma Betty whom Liz has never seen before as she had died before Liz was born. Betty looks like her mum, in fact looks the same age as her mum. On Elsewhere people don’t age they get younger until they are a baby, then they go back to earth to be reborn.
Liz is rebellious, she doesn’t want to stay on Elsewhere, she wants to be back down on earth, she wants to learn to drive, find love, get a career. Grandma Betty worries that Liz will never accept death.
Liz observes her family & friends from the observation decks, obsessively. She tries to swim back to earth but is stopped by Owen who is one of the detectives in charge of keeping the inhabitants of Elsewhere away from the Well, where contact with people on Earth is possible, but illegal.
She finally gets closer to grandmother Betty, and takes a job in the Division of Domestic Animals helping recently departed pets find new owners. Liz has the ability to talk Canine (talk to dogs)
Owen & Liz find friendship & then love but it is thrown into disarray when Owens wife dies and arrives at Elsewhere.

It is a nice book with a different slant on death and the afterlife. It is a little bit of a love story. If it helps people deal with bereavement then it has served a good purpose. It was an enjoyable book but I was glad when I finished it so I could start to read something else (where)