I especially remember a couple of chapters on Emily Dickinson’s poems and how Madison connects them to her life and death and the kind of ‘aha’ moment when she discovers what it means. There are moments of brilliance in Amy Huntley’s writing.

What starts as an effort to remember and piece together her life, turns out into figuring out the meaning of life and death. It finally dawns on her that she is surrounded by lost things, things she lost when she was alive and these things are her only means to go back and experience it once again, to find out what really happened to her and why she is dead when she is just 17 years old.Īs she goes through the moments of her life through the lost things, she remembers she has a boyfriend, a best friend and a family. She sees objects all around her, some of them are really of little worth-like a sweatshirt, a bracelet, orchids, or so it seems, until she connects to the objects that take her back to the moments of her life where she lost them. As the book opens Madison is trapped in a bubble or a tiny space of nothingness. I wasn’t sure where it was going in the beginning but as it progressed I knew that The Everafter would definitely be a great read. This is not a book where you can simply tell the plot and what worked and what didn’t. I finished this book some time back and I loved it, but when it came to writing a review I was stuck. This is a haunting and ultimately hopeful novel about the beauty of even the most insignificant moments-and the strength of true love even beyond death. In reliving these moments, Maddy learns illuminating and sometimes frightening truths about her life-and death.

And soon she discovers that with these artifacts, she can reexperience-and sometimes even change-moments from her life. The only company she has in this place are luminescent objects that turn out to be all the things Maddy lost while she was alive. Madison Stanton doesn’t know where she is or how she got there. Publisher: Balzer + Bray (September 29, 2009)

The everafter by amy huntley