12 July 2011

Review: Hereafter by Tara Hudson

Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 7th June 2011
Series: Herafter #1
Source: Netgalley

From Goodreads: Can there truly be love after death?
Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life—or her actual death—she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.
Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world . . . forever.
Thrilling and evocative, with moments of pure pleasure, Hereafter is a sensation you won't want to miss.

Review:
This is the story of Amelia after her death. When we meet Amelia all she really know is that she is dead. Slowly Amelia begins to remember things like her name and where she is. I like going into a book where the character has about as much knowledge as we do and as they find things out we slowly begin to learn about the character. Amelia is minding her own business one day when a car flies off the bridge, where Amelia knows she died. The driver of the car, Joshua, is drowning and Amelia manages to save him. From this moment on the only person in the living world who can see Amelia is Joshua and they begin to form a bond.


I loved this book. It took a couple of chapters for me to be really invested, but once I was I could not put it down. I liked how the story started off really slowly. It begins with only one character with little memory and very little going on and then another character is introduced and they interact for a while. This builds up to a handful of characters and some good otherworldly action and adventure. I really liked the character of Amelia and thought it was sweet that she suddenly worried about how she looked when she met Joshua. Hello your dead, you have probably looked better!

Joshua was a great character and I liked how he interacted with Amelia. However I would like to have known more about his family and his destiny but this will probably be covered in the next book. I thought this was a really charming and sweet story tinged with an underlying sadness that at times made me want to weep for them. The tragedy of love after death!!

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