Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

 

My third Zevin (though I haven't written about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I did review The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry) and my thoughts about her are still the same. I'm not a huge fan of her gaps in time, nor the distance from the characters' thoughts and emotions. I feel incredibly aware that I'm reading a book the entire time, instead of really engaging with the world and thinking of the characters as real people. That said, her story concepts are AMAZING.

In this book, I LOVED her concept of death - the logistics, how it happens, how you realize, how you "age." I did think the love story was pretty forced. It felt like it was there just because a book "should" have a love interest (disclaimer: not my opinion) or the editor said to add it. I didn't feel anything for the characters, I didn't "ship" them. I also thought it was pretty icky - I know the ages are different on Elsewhere, but there was still a strange gap that I just couldn't get on board with.

I also didn't like the end, mostly because I wanted to experience more "life" on Elsewhere. However, I appreciate the concept of everything going full circle. (Although, spoiler alert: the newborn baby laughing? I know it's a book but that took me right out of this reality, it seemed way too cutesy and unrealistic.)

I guess this makes a pretty unsatisfactory review of the book because I'm not totally raving or ranting about it, but I do think it's worth a read. I'm glad I read it for the concept of death alone - it definitely got my imagination running wild.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

In a book where people share their incredibly precise book tastes, I'll start this review by saying I don't like when books exhaustingly reference other literary works because it seems lazy, like they're bringing up specific stories to say, "Yeah... like that."

At the same time, I kind of love these books because literature is how I relate to people. What's your favorite book? What's the last book you read? What required reading did you actually like? What book disappointed you and why?

So getting to know characters this way is like Cliffs Notes. And since this book used short stories? I felt like I was back in college in the best way.

I read this book in about four hours. My mom loaned me her copy and once I started, I couldn't stop. I fell asleep reading it---not a commentary on the story itself---and finished it as soon as I woke up.

Initially, I disliked the massive timeline jumps. It was hard to orient the action, especially paired with the frequent and temporary jumps between points of view. But everything fit together like puzzle pieces, so I think it worked well at the end. The time jumps were especially nice once I reached the end, otherwise I would have been a blubbering mess. Moreso than I actually was.

In general, I prefer books with more character detail, which this book lacks and I think reinforces my theory that leaning so heavily on literary references gets lazy. I could fill in the blanks only because I knew the stories, because I don't think AJ's notes were enough to orient readers unfamiliar with the referenced works.