Mari never gave much thought to the afterlife before her untimely demise, but she certainly didn’t think it would be an experimental wellness enclave called Paradise Gate—a place where the newly dead go to sort out the unfinished business of their lives. She also didn’t think the biggest problem to plague her in life would follow her into the great beyond: her also recently deceased mother, Faye. Mari quickly realizes Faye is her unfinished business, and in order to move on to whatever’s next, she’ll have to find a way to forgive her dysfunctional mother for being no mother at all. But there’s so much to forgive: never holding down a steady job, never having a stable home, and abandoning Mari in the end.
It’s a lot to sort through, but faced with the possibility of being turned out into the abyss, Mari gets to work. She enrolls in the prescribed self- actualization classes (think: journaling, positive self-talk, and lots of Youga™). It all seems pretty hokey, but still, the assignments force Mari to confront difficult truths about her past.
When a shocking revelation about Mari’s death captures the attention of the afterlife media, Mari is suddenly in the spotlight, her messy history being judged by the whole realm. She finds escape in an equally troubled boy, who takes Mari to an obscure part of Paradise Gate and introduces her to rebels who show Mari that this “wellness center” is not all it pretends to be. With classmates disappearing and an afterlife revolution brewing, Mari must decide whether to play it safe or break the rules. At stake? Her eternal fate. Literally.
I can honestly say I’ve never read anything like this before.What Comes After is a unique story about grief, self discovery and questioning the establishment? It truely is like The Good Place for teens.
What an interesting take on the afterlife! It does read less like a book about the great beyond and more like a dystopian, but im not mad about it. Actually, at one point, I forgot I was reading a book about the hereafter. It completly slipped my mind.
I liked Mari! She is a strong, independent, persistent and cynical main character, but also a bit go along to get along, which is a character trait that I personally know far too well. Reading about the complex relationship between Mari and her mom was interesting, and I liked trying to piece together what happened with Maris murder. I found myself getting a bit excited every time we got a flashback.
I liked Jethro to begin with ( I do enjoy a misunderstood bad boy), but my distaste grew as the book went on, and I never really came back to liking him fully.
All in all, I enjoyed this read. It’s definitely not what I expected. I definitely did not get any clues as to what it might be like after we die, but it was an entertaining read.
Thanks to @netgalley and @penguinteenca for the copy
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