Barbara L. Talcroft (Children's Literature)
Fifteen-year-old Liz wakes up on a boat heading for--where? It turns out she has just died and she will be living (?) on Elsewhere, a place remarkably like the U.S., populated with dead people who are growing younger each year till they eventually become babies and are shot back to Earth on a river to start over. Only readers with a remarkable capacity for suspension of disbelief will feel comfortable with this concept. The minute you think about it, all kinds of questions pop into your mind: why are all the dead from the U.S.? Where are the other millions or billions of dead people? Elsewhere is full of talking dogs, who also have to be rehabilitated (Liz becomes a counselor for dogs), but where are the dead cats and other pets? Liz finds her long-dead grandmother (now younger) and falls in love with a man who was married in life. Is it possible to have sex when you’re dead? That question is never really answered, although the grandmother marries a lately-deceased rock star. What is happening? How are the cars, clothes, and other material goods produced? Is there some Intelligent Designer at work here? If this novel intends to be comforting to readers who have lost a friend or family member, a much more believable fantasy world would need to be constructed, with characters that matter, and a better idea for eternity than multitudes of dead folks becoming other people’s babies after leading a bland second life in suburban America. 2005, Farrar Straus and Giroux, $16.00. Ages 12 to 16.

CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices, 2006)
Liz Hall has died. “Elsewhere,” Liz soon learns, is what happens next. Gabrielle Zevin’s quirky, funny, and tender story is about a fifteen-year-old who must mourn the family and friends she has left behind—and the future she has lost— before she is able to notice that life is going on, if not quite as she expected. People in Elsewhere continue to age, but in reverse, the years rolling back one by one until they’re infants ready to be reborn. Liz’s grandmother (dead at 50; now 34) died before Liz was born, but now they are getting to know each other. Liz gets a job doing something she loves—working with (recently deceased) animals. Love is even in the air after Liz meets Owen (dead at 26, now 17), who teaches Liz how to drive. Liz and Owen’s budding relationship is temporarily sidetracked when Owen’s beloved wife dies (they’re reunited but it doesn’t work out. Life—and death—has changed them both too much). And so Liz and Owen are free to grow young together as Liz comes to understand that death is another dimension of life, and it, too, is surely worth living. CCBC Category: Fiction for Young Adults. 2005, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 275 pages, $16.00. Ages 12-17.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 16))
An unusual premise and a thoughtful treatment make Zevin's first effort at writing for young adults a success. Liz Hall is 15. She's looking forward to getting her license, enjoying helping her best friend plan for the prom and anticipating a long, full life. Her sudden death in a hit-and-run accident puts an end to her life on earth-and that's when the story begins. Zevin's creation of a believable, intriguing afterlife and her depiction of Liz's struggle to adjust to her new situation will captivate teens ready for a thought-provoking read. Love, jealousy, grief, commitment, frustration and friendship all exist "Elsewhere," making death not that different from life after all. Personal choices still make a difference and characters continue to learn and grow, despite the fact that they age backwards from the moment of their deaths. Zevin's smooth, omniscient third-person narration and matter-of-fact presentation of her imagined world carries readers along, while her deft, understated character development allows them to get to know her characters slowly and naturally. Hopeful and engaging. 2005, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 288p, $16.00. Category: Fiction. Ages 12 up. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Janis Flint-Ferguson (KLIATT Review, September 2005 (Vol. 39, No. 5))
Lizzie is dead. The 15-year-old was killed in a car accident on her way to the mall to meet a friend. This novel is the story of her “life” in the hereafter--in Elsewhere. Loosely reminiscent of the Greek myths, the people experience time backward, growing younger until they are infants who then once again return to Earth. Lizzie is a typical teen and she cannot believe that she is dead. The “life” she finds in Elsewhere seems to be a sick joke. What difference does it make where you live or what you do when you are dead? Lizzie lives with her grandmother, a woman she never knew on Earth, and she spends her days on the Observation Deck where she can see her best friend and family as they continue to live without her. She even tries to make use of an “escape clause,” which would allow her to return to Earth after one year. Her adjustment counselor finds her a job and soon she is helping the dogs who come to Elsewhere. She meets Owen, a young man who pines for the wife he left behind. Together they come to terms with their existence in Elsewhere. Lizzie is able to experience some of what she left behind on Earth with a growing realization that love transcends death and that regardless of the situation, you can make the most of the circumstances in which you find yourself. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: J--Recommended for junior high school students. 2005, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 288p., $16.00. Ages 12 to 15.

Deborah Stevenson, Associate Editor (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September 2005 (Vol. 59, No. 1))
Liz Hall is having a strange dream, wherein she’s traveling on a ship to an unknown destination and she and her fellow passengers are all wearing pajamas. Eventually she realizes that she’s not dreaming but dead, a fifteen-year-old victim of a hit-and-run accident, and she’s on her way to the afterlife. Soon she arrives at Elsewhere, where she meets up with the grandmother she never knew (Grandma Betty died before Liz was born) and learns the ways of the afterlife: she’ll get younger and younger until finally she becomes a baby and gets sent back to Earth to start again. Liz for a long time bogs down in grieving for the life she’s lost, even making an illicit attempt to communicate with her surviving family; Owen, the young man who retrieves her from this dangerous endeavor, soon becomes her boyfriend, but their relationship seems doomed when his wife passes on and joins him in Elsewhere. The afterlife here is sort of like regular life in a slightly different country from where it’s hard to call home (there’s a touch of Albert Brooks’ film Defending Your Life in Elsewhere’s quotidian details and its possibilities for new beginnings), which makes the book’s impact more subtle than overt. Nonetheless, the novel is funny and pensive, happy and heartbreaking, sometimes by turns and sometimes simultaneously. Liz understandably resents the truncation of her future and the limitations it places upon her Elsewhere possibilities (when you’re going backward from fifteen, grand romance isn’t very feasible), but her gradual contentment there is also plausible. Creative touches abound in the depiction of the Elsewhere lifestyle and in the human possibilities therein, and readers from a broad range of beliefs will find this a quirky and touching exploration of the Great Beyond. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2005, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, Farrar, 275p, $16.00. Grades 7-12.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2006)
In Zevin's afterlife, "everyone...ages backward from the day they died." When they're seven-day-old babies, they return to Earth from Elsewhere to begin a new life. Lizzie Hall, almost sixteen, struggles to adjust to her death and to the idea that--as Lizzie Hall--she'll never reach adulthood. With an intriguing premise, thoughtful characterization, and refreshing style, Zevin's poignant novel celebrates the rich complexities of being alive. Category: Older Fiction. 2005, Farrar, 279pp, 16.00. Ages 12 to 14. Rating: 1: Outstanding, noteworthy in style, content, and/or illustration.

Sarah Dunham (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 18, No. 4))
For those who have lost someone close to them at a young age, ELSEWHERE gives a glimpse of what the afterlife might be like. Liz is a fifteen-year-old girl who gets hit by a car while going to help a friend pick out a prom dress. She wakes to find herself on a boat. She doesn’t know how she got there or where she is going. In fact, the boat is taking her and all the other people who died that day to Elsewhere, an island where the dead “live.” This book is an interesting observation of a world without a definitive heaven or hell. As people arrive in Elsewhere, they age backwards until they become a baby again and are sent back to be reborn. Liz did not want to die and did so suddenly that she has a hard time coping with her death. With the help of new-found friends, a grandmother who passed away before she was born but is now the same age as her mother, and a fulfilling avocation, Liz learns to cope and actually begins to enjoy the time she has in Elsewhere. ELSEWHERE would be a good book for a counselor to recommend to a student who may have had a friend or relative die suddenly as a way for them to cope with the loss. Though the work is obviously fictitious, the idea of the book might bring comfort to the bereaved. It might also be a good book to read in class and have students write out what they feel the afterlife will be like. Attention grabbing and heartfelt, ELSEWHERE is a hopeful book about loss as well as finding new friends wherever you may find yourself. Fiction, Highly Recommended. Grades 7-10. 2005, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2273p., $16.00. Ages 12 to 16.

Mary E. Heslin (VOYA, October 2005 (Vol. 28, No. 4))
Readers who get past the dialogue, featuring a dog's account of its young mistress's death, will find this fantasy about the afterlife a fun and thought-provoking page-turner. Lizzie's new existence begins in Elsewhere. It is like earth with enhancements and a catch. She will grow younger each year, reversing from fifteen to fourteen and so on, until she becomes a baby and is new born to the world. Although the process might be nice for the aged, Lizzie's life was ahead of her, and she haunts the Observation Decks, watching her loved ones and mourning the big breasts, college life, and boyfriends that she will never have. But Elsewhere is not without attractions, one of which is Owen. Twenty-six and married when he died, he is now physically seventeen. He can be the boyfriend that Lizzie longs for if she can relax and enjoy him and if he can stop mourning his wife. Lizzie's challenge is to accept two seemingly contradictory propositions: one, that nothing is forever and that happiness is found in the moment, and two, that everything is forever, a continuous cycle, and one makes of the process what one will. Readers unwilling to suspend disbelief might find this story irritating. Zevin never explains how a fully grown baby enters its new mother's womb. Others will resent the instances of stereotyping-a rock star who overdoses, teens who drink, drive, and die. Still others will relish Zevin's lively imagination and her fast-moving plot. Buy this book for them. VOYA CODES: 4Q 2P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2005, Farrar Straus Giroux, 288p., $16. Ages 11 to 15.