Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

                                     
                                    

"Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatric practice.
Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver’s license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she’s dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn’t want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward? "


I borrowed this book from a school mate of mine! She was reading it in the corridor and i marched up to her and convinced her to let me borrow it. I took quite a while to finish it, and even longer to get down to post this review! (I finish the book sometime in the beginning of last week). And now that i finally have i shall get on with it.. 
15 year old Lizzie gets hit by a cab and the next thing she knows, she is on a ship heading to a place called Elsewhere. At Elsewhere, she meets her granny Betty, who died of Breast Cancer. When she learns of Elsewhere and why she is there, she gets really upset. The story is about how she accepts things and discovers Elsewhere..
The book was a little slow but the some of the ideas are interesting. I like the way Zevin created a world of her own and how she filled in the details. It had the occasional humor and sentimental bits..
The beginning didn't quite catch my attention, but eventually i read on when questions begun popping up in my head. I didn't like the protagonist very much, she seemed stuck-up and stubborn, i frequently got annoyed with her. The other characters didn't have too much depth so i couldn't quite connect with any of them, with an exception. The exception being Curtis Jest, i liked him very much!!
There were a lot of gaps in the story- a few unexplained things- *spoiler alert*- Like how did Thandi figure out the Elsewhere concept? and How does Betty know of Lizzie's arrival?...and some others...
There were some bits to the story which felt incomplete to me, but nevertheless i enjoyed the book.
The author sounds like a fun person (from the sound of her interview at the back of the book!).
I would give it a 2 on 5!
  there is another edition of this book with a different cover, which i liked very much and better than the one above, so i included it! Of course there are more than two editions but just these two seemed relevant to me right now..