Book Review: After Life by Gayle Forman

After Life by Gayle Forman
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Publication Date: January 7, 2025
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams.

Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now. 

This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?

This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.

Amber rides her bike home from school everyday but today when she arrives home, her mother sees her and screams. Why? Seven years ago, Amber died in a hit and run accident while riding the very bike she rode home today.

Amber doesn’t know how or why she has returned from the dead and neither does anyone else. In coming back, Amber is able to see how both her life and her death impacted her loved ones. Even people she’s never met are affected. Everyone is grieving her death in their own way. Some are managing better than others.

After Life is about grief, regrets, family and sisterhood. It jumps around in time from the events leading up to Amber’s return, going back as far as when her parents met. The central relationship is Amber and her younger sister Missy. I love books where the story unravels in such a way that seemly unconnected people and events actually do connect, and this is one of those books.

After Life is a YA novel intended for high schoolers, but adults will enjoy it as well. It’s a quick read with good pacing and can easily be read in day. Recommended.

(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)

I’ve also reviewed Gayle Forman’s book If I Stay.