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Review: After Life by Gayle Forman

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After Life by Gayle Forman

After Life
Gayle Forman
Quill Tree Books
Published January 7, 2025

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About After Life

“After Life is a masterful tale about a family coping with loss, showing the way grief affects us and people we don’t even know in ways we don’t see. Once I met Amber and her family, I didn’t want to let them go.” -—Brigid Kemmerer, New York Times bestselling author of Carving Shadows into Stone

“Forman is a master at making her readers fall in love—with a girl whose life is over, with a community of people in a small town who are barely surviving her loss, and with the incredible, surprising way everyone’s stories knit together into a heartbreaking and hopeful whole.” —E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud

One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams.

Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now.

This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?

This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.

My Review

The first novel by Gayle Forman I ever read was If I Stay. (Which, apparently, I never reviewed! Hmm.) My first thought about After Life was that it has a similar ethereal vibe to If I Stay.

In After Life, Amber returns, but there’s a veil between her and her past life, seven years ago. Some things about her life are fresh in her mind and still feel present to her, but to everyone else, she’s been gone seven years. Her return isn’t just miraculous; it’s jarring.

The story jumps around a lot from past to present and different perspectives. I kept everything straight easily, maybe because the chapters were so short. Maybe because the characters are all so different from one another. The story felt pretty straightforward like everything contributed to a whole.

Only one scene struck me as super weird. In it, the romance escalates quickly and suddenly halts. I thought that considering the history of the characters, it seemed strange that the scene played out that way. I just didn’t find it believable, especially as I continued reading.

The rest of the book had some hard-hitting emotional scenes. The town where Amber’s family lives has an It’s a Wonderful Life feel. Threads connect characters in sometimes surprising ways. One character’s actions have a ripple effect, impacting other people in the story. The way the narrative jumps around allows readers to focus on those threads and see how the characters are connected.

At the core of the story is a relationship between two sisters. Melissa and Amber had a complicated relationship before Amber’s death. Amber wants to make up for lost time and for the harm she has caused. The tenderness and acceptance between those two is my favorite part of the story.

The book also explores our different responses to grief. Forman wrote an insightful afterward that explains why she wrote the story and her thoughts on how we grieve. I loved the book before I read her note, but I loved it even more after reading it.

Conclusion

All in all, this is a good one, especially if you like books that break convention to explore a spiritual or relational idea. It’s also less than 300 pages, so a pretty quick read. I highly recommend it.

The cast of the story is pretty inclusive. It includes a person with severe allergies, several queer people, and people of color.

Content Notes for After Life

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Some profanity used.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. References to sex and cheating on a partner. Some scenes describe nudity and, briefly, sex.

Spiritual Content
References to Christian faith and atheism. (One of Amber’s parents was an atheist before her death and appears to have a change of heart when she reappears. Her other parent kept faith as a core part of life, which Amber’s death appears to have challenged.) The family (minus Amber) attends church (off-scene) and speaks to their pastor about miracles.

Violent Content
A boy grabs a girl by the shoulders and shakes her. A man punches someone (several scenes reference this). References to an accident in which a car struck a girl on a bike, killing her. Her injuries are briefly described.

Drug Content
More than one character (adults) drinks too much alcohol or appears to be an alcoholic. A teen drinks alcohol. References to drug use or selling/buying drugs.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

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The Wild Robot (The Wild Robot #1)
Peter Brown
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published April 5, 2016

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About The Wild Robot

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is—but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island’s unwelcoming animal inhabitants.

As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home—until, one day, the robot’s mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.

My Review

Okay, so I’m probably one of the last people to read this book, especially now that it’s been made into a movie. The good news is that making something into a movie usually helps to motivate me to read the book if I haven’t already. I like to read the book first so that my first experience with the story is in the author’s words.

I picked up a copy of The Wild Robot while shopping for my birthday last year. Near Christmas, I found myself in a pretty fierce reading slump, and an illustrated book with short chapters seemed very appealing to me at that moment, so I started reading.

And from the first few chapters, I was hooked on the story. Really, once we got to the animals and their reactions to Roz, I began to deeply invest in what was happening. I love the way that the simple illustrations convey emotion. My heart squeezed at the image of the robot standing at the top of a tree. The robot holding a gosling while he fell asleep was so sweet.

I love the way the book balances an open look at natural order with a more anthropomorphic one about the value of community, familial love, and relationships. The animal characters include predators and prey, and while nobody gets eaten on scene, it’s referenced around the story’s edges. Roz adopts a gosling and raises him until he can join the other geese. She explores what it means to be a mother and what it means to raise someone well.

I enjoyed the different characters and the way they pull together when faced with an unknown threat or pull together to help one of their own community members. This is a sweet story and a pretty quick read. If you haven’t read it yet, definitely check out The Wild Robot.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
The main character is Roz, a robot. Most other characters are animals.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A hurricane sinks a ship carrying boxes of robots. Some robots get destroyed before they reach the island. Roz accidentally kills a family of geese. The story references predator animals eating other animals. At one point, robots fight the island’s inhabitants. One uses a gun to subdue others.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. All opinions are my own.

Review: Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson

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Those Pink Mountain Nights
Jen Ferguson
Heartdrum
Published September 12, 2023

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About Those Pink Mountain Nights

In her remarkable second novel following her acclaimed debut, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, which won the Governor General’s Award and received six starred reviews, Jen Ferguson writes about the hurt of a life stuck in past tense, the hum of connections that cannot be severed, and one week in a small snowy town that changes everything.

Over-achievement isn’t a bad word—for Berlin, it’s the goal. She’s securing excellent grades, planning her future, and working a part-time job at Pink Mountain Pizza, a legendary local business. Who says she needs a best friend by her side?

Dropping out of high school wasn’t smart—but it was necessary for Cameron. Since his cousin Kiki’s disappearance, it’s hard enough to find the funny side of life, especially when the whole town has forgotten Kiki. To them, she’s just another missing Native girl.

People at school label Jessie a tease, a rich girl—and honestly, she’s both. But Jessie knows she contains multitudes. Maybe her new job crafting pizzas will give her the high-energy outlet she desperately wants.

When the weekend at Pink Mountain Pizza takes unexpected turns, all three teens will have to acknowledge the various ways they’ve been hurt—and how much they need each other to hold it all together.

My Review

The story alternates between the perspectives of Berlin, Cameron, Jessie, and Kiki and centers around their connection to a local pizza parlor that they learn the owner plans to sell. Kiki’s chapters are in verse and start in the past leading toward the time when she disappeared. All four voices are distinct in the way they perceive the world and respond. Berlin’s grief over her recently lost friendship and the pervasive numbness she feels colors all of her experiences. She tries to keep up with school and work as if everything is normal, but it has become an immense struggle.

Cameron has big feelings about his family, especially his missing cousin, but also his younger sisters, whom he feels he must protect, and his father, who treads the water of his own grief. Cam hasn’t felt seen or understood by Berlin, but as they begin to get to know one another again, they form a surprising bond that helps them both in unexpected ways.

Jessie has a spectacular voice, too. She uses words in interesting ways and brings a lot of humor to the page, which might seem odd, since she carries her own grief and sadness, too.

This is a messy story with messy characters being real about how hard life can be sometimes, even for people who, on the outside, seem to have everything going for them. It’s also a story about internalized prejudices and how invisible they can be without deliberate action to root them out.

Ferguson is a hard-hitting author who trusts readers to be able to face hard truths and delivers compelling characters.I seem to be reading her books backward, since I started with her most recent release, A Constellation of Minor Bears, and then read this one. Up next: The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, which I’ve heard great things about.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Cameron and Berlin are Native. Kiki is biracial, Black and Native. Jessie is a cancer survivor and is LGBTQIA+. Cameron has a learning disability.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
A handful of F-bombs and other swear words.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two girls. Kissing between boy and girl. An implied sexual relationship between an adult and a teenage girl. A girl makes reference to an adult who routinely comes on to teenage girls. References to the fact that a girl enjoys making out with people.

Spiritual Content
References to Métis and Cree beliefs and rituals. Berlin and Cameron find a severely injured wapati (elk) and help end her pain. Both feel the presence of the wapati’s spirit in their lives in different ways after that and follow its leading.

Violent Content
References to a sexual relationship between and adult and a teenager. Nothing happens on scene. Cameron ends the pain of a severely injured wapati. Some characters make ani-Indigenous comments or statements. Major characters push back on those. Characters encounter anti-Black statements in a social media campaign. The story explores the impact of anti-Black feeling and actions toward a Black man and young Black and Indigenous woman. The novel also discusses the disparity in police response to missing Native women compared to other missing persons cases.

Drug Content
References to a teenager smoking.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: This Town is On Fire by Pamela N. Harris

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This Town is On Fire
Pamela N. Harris
Quill Tree Books
Published June 20, 2023

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About This Town is On Fire

From the critically acclaimed author of When You Look Like Us comes a page-turning YA contemporary novel about what happens when the latest “Becky” on the internet is your best friend.

A lot is up in the air in Naomi Henry’s her spot as a varsity cheer flier, her classmates’ reaction to the debut of her natural hair, and her crush on the guy who’s always been like a brother to her. With so much uncertainty, she feels lucky to have a best friend like Kylie to keep her grounded. After all, they’re practically sisters—Naomi’s mom took care of Kylie and her twin brother for years. But then a video of Kylie calling the cops on two Black teens in a shopping store parking lot goes viral. Naomi is shaken, and her town is reeling from the publicity.

While Naomi tries to reckon with Kylie, the other Black students in their high school are questioning their friendship, and her former friends are wondering where this new “woke” Naomi came from. Although Naomi wants to stand by her best friend, she now can’t help but see everything in a different light. As tensions in her town escalate, Naomi finds herself engaging in protests that are on the cusp of being illegal. And then a bomb explodes, and someone is found dead.   Will Naomi be caught in the center of the blast? 

Golden Kite Award winner Pamela N. Harris has crafted a taut novel that delves into big issues, and is the perfect next read for fans of I’m Not Dying with You Tonight and The Black Kids.

My Review

My only gripe with this book at all is that it’s over 400 pages long, which is on the long side for a contemporary YA novel.

That said, the book doesn’t really feel that long. It jumps back and forth between the past (the start of Naomi’s senior year of high school) and the present (immediately after rescue workers pulled her from the wreckage caused by a bomb at a bowling alley). This made the story feel really urgent. You’re piecing together what happened from clues in the scenes reflecting the past.

The characters in the book have a lot of depth and layers to them. Kylie’s ignorance goes viral, sure. And she doesn’t truly seem to understand why people react the way they do. Naomi can’t unsee that ignorance. But does it completely erase all the connection there is between the girls? This is something Naomi has to figure out for herself.

She forms connections with other Black students, and for the first time, she feels truly seen. Those relationships energize her in a new way and make her feel unguarded and free in ways she didn’t expect. But those aren’t simple relationships, either. She experiences betrayal among these new friends, too.

Harris does a phenomenal job of showing the complexities of relationships and reminding us that the people involved are the only ones who get to decide what the relationship means to them. The writing is razor-sharp and raw with honesty. This is a story I won’t soon forget.

Content Notes for This Town is On Fire

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
List.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
List.

Romance/Sexual Content
List.

Spiritual Content
List.

Violent Content
List.

Drug Content
List.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich

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The Game of Silence (Birchbark House #2)
Louise Erdrich
HarperCollins
Published June 13, 2006

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About The Game of Silence

Winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, The Game of Silence is the second novel in the critically acclaimed Birchbark House series by New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich.

Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. One day in 1850, Omakayas’s island is visited by a group of mysterious people. From them, she learns that the chimookomanag, or white people, want Omakayas and her people to leave their island and move farther west.

That day, Omakayas realizes that something so valuable, so important that she never knew she had it in the first place, could be in danger: Her way of life. Her home.

The Birchbark House Series is the story of one Ojibwe family’s journey through one hundred years in America. The New York Times Book Review raved about The Game of Silence: “Erdrich has created a world, fictional but real: absorbing, funny, serious and convincingly human.”

My Review

It’s easy to see why this series has won the awards and received the acclaim that it has. The author welcomes readers into the story of a young Ojibwe girl as she navigates changing seasons, life as a middle child, and the recipient of a powerful gift of dreams.

Omakayas learns about medicine from her grandmother. They collect plants for different purposes and help others who fall sick or become injured. She watches her older sister growing up and falling in love, though she doesn’t fully understand what’s happening and feels shut out of her sister’s thoughts and feelings sometimes.

The relationships between characters strike the perfect balance between presenting information as a child would understand it and offering clues that older readers will interpret to more fully explain what’s happening. This is especially true of the relationships between female characters, such as Omakayas and her older sister, her mother, and her grandmother.

The story also includes characters who don’t fit the traditional expectations for women or men. One example is a woman named Old Tallow, who lives on her own with several dogs and is a renowned hunter. Another instance is Omakayas’s cousin, Two Strike Girl, who refuses to help with what she terms “women’s work” and impresses the tribe when she brings down a bull moose with a single shot. The tribe leaders sense that she could become a great leader, or she could make choices that put her life or the lives of others in danger. They feel it’s important to nurture the girl’s strong spirit and understand her path will look different than the others’.

Readers who enjoy mid-nineteenth century history, especially American history, will enjoy this clever, beautiful story about community, family, and finding one’s own path.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Omakayas and her family are Ojibwe. Most characters in the book are Ojibwe.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Omakayas witnesses and participates in spiritual practices and rituals of her people. Her family are friends with a priest who serves at a church in a nearby town, but they do not share the same beliefs. There are references to other tribe members who practice Catholicism.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Someone hunts and shoots a moose. Omakayas helps her grandmother, a healer, remove a frostbitten finger from someone in their care.

Drug Content
Some tribe members smoke tobacco in a pipe. Vague references to alcohol. (No one drinks alcohol on scene.)

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. All opinions are my own.

Review: The Judgment of Yoyo Gold by Isaac Blum

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The Judgment of Yoyo Gold
Isaac Blum
Philomel Books
Published October 15, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Judgment of Yoyo Gold

A smart and powerful story set in the Orthodox Jewish community about what it means to fit in, break out, and find your own way, by the award-winning author of The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen. This book is Gossip Girl + My Name Is Asher Lev + I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

Yoyo Gold has always played the role of the perfect Jewish daughter. She keeps kosher, looks after her siblings, and volunteers at the local food bank. She respects the decisions of her rabbi father and encourages her friends to observe the rules of their Orthodox faith. But when she sees her best friend cast out of the community over a seemingly innocent transgression, Yoyo’s eyes are opened to the truth of her neighbors’ hypocrisies for the first time. And what she sees leaves her shocked and unmoored.

As Yoyo’s frustration builds, so does the pressure to speak out, even if she can only do so anonymously on TikTok, an app that’s always been forbidden to her. But when one of her videos goes viral—and her decisions wind up impacting not only her own life but also her relationship with the boy she’s falling for—Yoyo’s world is thrown into chaos. She is forced to choose which path to take, for her community, for her family, and most importantly, for herself.

Award-winning author Isaac Blum returns with a new novel that asks what it really means to be part of a community—and what it means to break free.

My Review

I feel like this is one of those books whose sum is greater than its parts. It’s a girl’s exploration of her faith and what it means to her. It’s a dry, funny story about growing up and falling in love.

One of my favorite things about the book is all the moments in which Yoyo responds to a situation with some unexpected, funny aside. Sometimes it’s a quick after-the-fact joke. Those moments consistently took me by surprise and added levity to the scene.

I also like how much of the story centers around female relationships with one another and the power of those connections to protect or destroy. The girls could be cruel to one another. In a close community like Yoyo’s, rumors could be devastating. But that same close community meant that girls holding space for one another and offering support or understanding also had a huge impact.

At this point, I think we’ve all read books about faith deconstruction in which the main character grows up and discards the beliefs and values they were raised to hold. The message is usually something along the lines of exposing hypocrisy and casting off faith which held one back from living a fuller, more authentic life.

This isn’t that story. It’s frank in its assessment of the strictures of the Orthodox faith. Yoyo’s questions are genuine, and her struggle is real. But it isn’t a binary question of whether she will embrace her faith or discard it. Her path forward isn’t simple, but it does lead her toward greater authenticity and a greater understanding of what her role in her family and community and her faith mean to her.

I can tell I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time, and I’m really excited to read more by Isaac Blum. I have his debut novel, but hadn’t gotten to it yet. I’m going to have to fix that very soon!

Readers who enjoy faith exploration or stories about someone’s journey toward a more authentic life will want to read this one.

Content Notes for The Judgment of Yoyo Gold

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Most characters are Jewish. One of Yoyo’s friends is Korean American and Jewish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
A very small number of swear words.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to touching over clothes.

Spiritual Content
Yoyo is part of an Orthodox community and adheres to strict faith practices and beliefs. Through the story she explores her relationship with her faith and with those rules. Is she doing things because she wants to or because it’s expected? Does she agree with the values of the community? What happens when someone breaks the rules? The story references Shabbos services, holidays, and other Jewish traditions.

Violent Content
Some references to antisemitic comments on Yoyo’s social media. Reference to sexually violent comments. (Yoyo doesn’t repeat what commenters said, only that it’s explicit and violent.)

Drug Content
Yoyo and other teens drink alcohol at a party. Yoyo sees someone using a vape pen.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.