Afterworlds

by Scott Westerfeld

From international bestselling author, Scott Westerfeld, a brand new, thought-provoking, suspenseful thriller you won't be able to put down!

Darcy Patel has put college and everything else on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. Arriving in New York with no apartment or friends she wonders whether she's made the right decision until she falls in with a crowd of other seasoned and fledgling writers who take her under their wings...

Told in alternating chapters is Darcy's novel, a suspenseful thriller about Lizzie, a teen who slips into the 'Afterworld' to survive a terrorist attack.

But the Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead and as Lizzie drifts between our world and that of the Afterworld, she discovers that many unsolved - and terrifying - stories need to be reconciled. And when a new threat resurfaces, Lizzie learns her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she loves and cares about most.

• ISBN10: 1481422359
• ISBN13: 9781481422352
• Publish Date: 29 September 2015 (first published 23 September 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Edition: Reprint ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 624
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

Wow, I think . . . maybe I just didn't get this book. What I can say with surety is that it has the worst tagline I've ever read. "Darcy writes the words. Lizzie lives them." Afterworlds is a book in two parts; a book within a book. There's Darcy's story (the actual story?), and there's Lizzie's story (what's actually Afterworlds, the novel Darcy wrote). And like . . . yeah, if you write a novel, the characters will be living what you write . . . so . . . this tagline is the most useless thing this book could have slopped on the cover. Especially on a book about publishing.

Book content warnings:
ableist language
cissexim
biphobia

Okay, so the book alternates both "stories"/PoVs, making it very frustrating to get into either of them. Plus, Darcy's story could be told without Lizzie's - a contemporary novel about a young YA author who gets published and falls in love, etc., but Lizzie's story could Not exist without Darcy's. Not because of the Obvious fact that Darcy wrote it, but because (no offense to the fictional character Darcy) it sucks. Which then makes Darcy's story harder to be interesting, because her life . . . is all about her "bestselling" book.

Darcy Patel is an 18yo Indian-American (whose family life is actually one of the more interesting aspects of this whole package here) who wrote an entire book in NaNoWriMo. It's a rough draft, but she decides to query it off to a literary agency anyway. Just one agency, just one letter. And wow! The agent signs her in 17 DAYS - and Darcy gets a 100k advance! (what??) And then this big-shot agent lets Darcy stay in her NY apartment while she's on vacation until Darcy finds an apartment of her own.

If this seems suspiciously strange and more than a bit insulting to aspiring writers everywhere - then yeah, that's how I felt, too.

Throughout the entire book, it feels like Darcy just doesn't have to work hard to overcome anything. Isn't that the basis for a plot? Is this just a novel about some girl's sliding through the YA industry - an industry so many people have to work hard to get into - and stay in? I don't know . . . what's happening.

Then there's Imogen Gray, Darcy's love interest. THANK YOU, Imogen, for making this book interesting. Imogen herself isn't a particularly outstanding character, but she brought some interesting dynamic to the book and created a good balance to Darcy's near-narcissism. And when they KISSED. It made me want to swallow all my criticisms of this book, because I haven't read that many great kisses between women in YA, let alone lit at all.

Speaking of their relationship, though, it brought some problematic things . . . from the characters and (maybe) Scott Westerfeld himself?

Darcy couldn't let it go that she didn't know Imogen Gray's real name, and that it was a pen name used to start fresh after a less-than-perfect past. Chill out. A person's name given to them at birth isn't as important as the name they choose for themselves but apparently Darcy thinks given names are some "real" and "secret" mythical things, I don't know. Maybe it show's Scott Westerfeld's lack of understanding of this age group (like having some 18 year olds saying "squee" and "all the feelings" out loud . . . yikes).

And then we have this awful thing for young bi girls to read:

"So do you only like girls now?" Nisha asked.
"I don't know."
"That answer bores me, Patel. You must look at people now and then. Like, random hotties on the street. Are they ever boys?"
"I don't look at anyone else. I don't think about it that way. Maybe I'm Imogen-sexual."
(p. 458)

Darcy became an irritating character about halfway through and onward. Who snoops through their girlfriends closet and then just calls it innocent snooping? She later looks at Imogen's diary on her phone, too, and becomes even more juvenile. She misses the deadlines for literally everything. Her college, lease, nearly her draft, etc. And then she blames all this on the universe being arrayed against her, I SWEAR. (This is her character growth, too.) Maybe that explains how unlikable her book and her book's characters are.

Darcy's novel is a typical paranormal romance, starting off with a bang (a terrorist attack), which results in the protagonist, Lizzie, becoming a "grim reaper", of sorts. Then she meets another gorgeous psychopomp, falls in love, and makes a bunch of terrible choices. Including straight-up murdering someone. :/ She feels no remorse for it, either. I mean he was a murderer, but still. Nobody's actions make sense, nobody is relatable. And worst of all, it adds nothing to Darcy's story.

So I'm just left feeling confused about everything.

[Katie King]

**I received my copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**

**1.5 Stars**

Well, this was bad. I really enjoyed Westerfeld's Uglies series, but that gave me the false hope that I would also like Afterworlds. I really wanted to like this book. The first few pages were great. But beyond that lie the worst book within a book ever.

The story within the story (and the book itself) was awful

Honestly, the story within the story (about Lizzie) didn't capture my interest at all. The dead childhood friend part was fascinating but how everything was handled (I murdered someone, oops, oh well lololol), the whole river of death thing, Yamaraj and Yami were very shallow characters, Mr. Hamlyn's presence/motivation in everything...it was bad. Everything was bad. Maybe it was supposed to be bad and a reflection of how much Darcy sucks. Maybe it was a legitimate attempt at a novelception. Either way, it was annoying. I skimmed a lot of the ending because the convenient bullshit was just piling up.

The world building was probably the worst part. I didn't understand anything about the world around Lizzie. I couldn't picture her house, the concept of the river of death, the underworld, the World War II part, the Colorado thing - anything! Events just randomly happened with such a quick pace that I literally couldn't even follow what was happening. No rules or structure or anything was ever laid down, just this person is here saying this to this other person. BUT WHY?

The actual story about Darcy was just boring and unrealistic. Darcy writes a novel in a month that sells for $150k, so she must be talented, right? Well, no, apparently her book is kinda bad (CLEARLY bad, as we are considerately provided that text as well) and she really sucks at staying on top of deadlines, grammar, really everything to do with writing. I appreciated the glimpse into an author's life, but everything felt very artificial. Darcy gets this amazing contract. Darcy gets this amazing apartment. Darcy makes all these amazing friends who all love her amazing book. Darcy has all these things handed to her and she abuses them, takes advantage of them, and ignores everything real in her life.

Darcy is annoying!

Take a look at this sentence:

"First Imogen's phone and autocorrect had conspired to destroy her life, and now her landlord, the IRS, and her future college were joining in."

This appears at the very end of the book, in response to Darcy violating her girlfriend Imogen's privacy and trust, and being irresponsible by not keeping tabs on her lease, her spending habits, and her college's deadline for deferral. Literally EVERYTHING wrong in her life is the direct result of her lack of maturity, yet she seeks anything else to place blame. The phone, the IRS, the college itself - all conspiring against her. Imagine that kind of luck! This really put me over the edge with Darcy. I already thought she was bratty, selfish, whiny, and immature, but that sentence right there put me decisively in the anti-Darcy camp. I get that she's 18/19, but I am not much older than that and she just sounds like an insufferable brat.

The romance(s) sucked

Yamaraj - I don't even have words about this. I don't understand this AT ALL.

Imogen - I felt really bad for her. She really tried to make things work but Darcy of course was jumping to conclusions and being nasty and selfish. Their breakup conversation really made me feel for her and only added to how I felt about Darcy. When Imogen approached Darcy at the end to reconcile, I was just like "no, no, no, NO!"

There's just so many bad points

I gave this book a rating based on the only part I enjoyed - Mindy's story and when Lizzie tracked down the girl and found out about the other girls. I'm a big fan of crime stories, so this really piqued my interest. Unfortunately it was a very minute part of the book.

This book didn't even have to be this bad. If Westerfeld had concentrated on developing either story more and dropping the other one, they could've been good - but alone. The novelception is, I supposed, a cute gimmick, but it really didn't pay off at all.

[kimbacaffeinate]

Caffeinated Aspects:

• Afterworlds is delivered in two parts and we navigate between them. The first is that of Darcy Patel a seventeen-year-old writer who puts of college to go to New York after landing a publishing deal for her novel Afterworlds. Can you see the appeal? Life as a writer in the Big Apple. Yep, I was excited and curious. The second part is Darcy’s novel Afterworlds. Afterworld is a suspenseful paranormal thriller that takes place in the world between the living and the dead. Creep-tastic right?


• Darcy was genuinely portrayed, despite having written a novel in 30 days and selling it to a publisher. *every writers dream* Westerfeld made her experiences both as new writer and those of a young woman starting out in the big city feel surreal. Her feelings and insecurities are those I am sure every new writer feels.


• In Afterworlds Darcy’s story, we get essentially a ghost story, with some insta-love. I thought some of the concepts; especially the twisted paranormal aspects were interesting. Westerfeld introduced some new paranormal characters in this land of the dead. I personally thought the ghost Lizzie befriends in her home was the most interesting character in the entire book.


• Scott Westerfield is talented, and brought the worlds to life. Even though I did not connect with this tale, I will gladly try another work by him.

Decaffeinated Aspects:

• While both stories had aspects that appealed to me, and I certainly had no trouble, finishing the novel I never became caught up in the story. I love when I slip into the world, connect with the characters and lose track of time. Sadly, I never achieved that nirvana with Afterworlds. When I finished I scratched my head and questioned, “What was the point?”


• The tale transitions well between stories and if I had to choose between the two, Afterworlds with Lizzie was far more interesting. Which surprises me because it took me a long time to connect with Lizzie.


• We get an LGBT romance in NY with Darcy, but because of the two stories, we never really get a chance to connect with Darcy and her love interest. The romance in Darcy’s novel Afterworlds was complete insta-love and never fully developed.

Audio CD received from publisher and full review posted on blog.This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[Kelly]

2.5 Stars
http://www.divabooknerd.com/2014/08/afterworlds-by-scott-westerfeld.html
I have no idea how to review Afterworlds. It was certainly unique, where Darcy is a soon to be published author and Lizzie is living out her words. The two girls have never met, and Lizzie doesn't see her life as being that of an alternate reality. But what isn't clear, is Lizzie real? Told in dual points of view, I found Lizzie's story much more engaging, where Darcy's writing, relationship and life woes tended to drag on. She's only eighteen, but incredibly insecure, highly strung and often seemed to snap, unable to cope with the pressure of life. Darcy is a Hindu meat eater who doesn't follow her culture's religious beliefs, she's also gay. I'm all for diversity and applaud authors for experimenting, but it seems to a bit too much for a culture rich in tradition. That's the miracle of young adult novels.

Like the publisher reaction to Darcy's novel, Lizzie's opening chapters are as equally terrifying and incredible. But although there are moments of brilliance throughout, the inclusion of Hindu mythology, the remaining are few and far between. Considering his other works, I've convinced myself that this was more so a tongue in cheek dig at how many tropes are squeezed into young adult novels, as Lizzie's storyline didn't seem to amount to very much at all. Even though Darcy's love life may have taken a battering, everything else seemed to fall into place for the teen wonder. The perfect apartment, the exorbitant payment for her first novel written within thirty days, the parties with other fabulous young adult writers, tagging along with a accomplished author's book tour. It was too easy, and being an avid reader of author blogs, this seemingly contradicts what most authors experience. Was it simply a case of satire at the young and inexperienced author also being the flavour of the month? I think there may be far more behind the meaning of Afterworlds than taking this one at face value.

In true Scott Westerfeld style, the writing is impeccable, but sadly it's his characters and storyline that let me down. I was eagerly anticipating Afterworlds, but was just left feeling disappointed.

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Book reviews & blogging tips

Let's clarify some terms

Before we begin, I need to set down some terminology for my review. As you probably know, the book Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld is two books in one, told in alternating chapters. One story is that of Darcy, a soon-to-be-published YA author. The story is about her selling her book, doing rewrites, and drafting the next book in the series. The other story is about Darcy's book. We actually get to read it. However, just to confuse things, that 'story within the story' is also called Afterworlds.

From this point on out, please abide by the following definitions:

• This book — Refers to the 'real' published book Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld.


• Afterworlds — Refers to the 'story within the story', which is the YA paranormal book that Darcy writes.

Uggghh!

This book had a lot of potential. For the most part (except towards the end), I liked the contemporary, YA author story. It was cool to watch an author go through the world of publishing. But, for the most part, I hated the story she was writing (Afterworlds).

The paranormal ghost story (Afterworlds)

I hated it. Every single time I got to one of these chapters, I asked myself the same question:

Can I skip this chapter? Will the book still make sense if I don't read the whole 'Afterworlds' part of the book?

I never did skip a chapter, but much to my dismay, I could have. Now, looking back, I'm screaming at myself for NOT skipping because IT WAS POINTLESS! Even at the end, the Afterworlds part of the book never actually felt important. Everything still would have made sense if that part of the book was stripped out.

But anyway...

I don't like ghost stories

To be fair, I never gave the Afterworlds part of the book much of a chance. I did like the first chapter with the terrorist attack, but once it turned paranormal, I wasn't interested anymore. But, I think a large portion of that is on me: I don't like ghost stories. That's just a preference I have. Some people don't like sci-fi, some don't like contemporary, some don't like romance... I don't like ghost stories. And Afterworlds was definitely a ghost story.

Lamest Twilight-inspired romance ever

But on top of that, it was also a romance... sort of. I got the idea that it was supposed to be a romance. Lizzie meets a "hot, shiny boy" and gets a bit gaga for him.

Even in that awful moment, I could see that he was beautiful. He shone somehow, as if sunlight were breaking through the mist, just for him. He was one of those boys with a perfect jaw, who looks stunning when he's clean shaven, but just that little bit more handsome with the barest shadow of stubble.
Afterworlds, page 24

They never really have a "we are now dating" or "will you go out with me?" moment; they just kiss a few times and then suddenly that's the norm. It was horrible! It was so insta-lovey, but without any actual love. It was more like "insta-kiss-and-now-our-lips-are-glued-together-but-we-aren't-in-love". How's that for confusing?

His lips pressed against mine, and a wave of heat floored into me.
Afterworlds, page 31

Look at that: first kiss on page 31. And that's after like two chapters of the contemporary story (so more like page 15).

Is there a personality in there?

But for me, I think the worst part of this Lizzie/Yamaraj romance was the fact that YAMARAJ HAD NO PERSONALITY!!! The guy was such a polite, faceless blank slate. He had no emotion, no personality, nothing! He just existed, spoke a few words now and then, and sparkled like a Twilight vampire.

The contemporary "YA Author" story

I started out quite enjoying the "YA author on the rise" part of this story. I thought it was really cool to see a young author enter the world of publishing. I loved reading about the "YA drink night" she was invited to, receiving the notes from her editor, being on deadline. I have no idea how accurate it was, being that I'm not an author myself, but it was fun to read about nonetheless.

Then a romance kicked in.. out of NOWHERE! I didn't see it coming. There was no build up, no flirting, no hints, nada! Then it just slammed into the story full force. For a while, that turned me off the contemporary part of the story because at first there was just no chemistry; it was so insta-lovey (again). Eventually it did win me back over.. for a while.

The fact that I hated the paranormal story weakened the book overall

Really disliking the paranormal "story within the story" made me like the "YA author" story even less. The YA author part was about this girl writing, selling, and publishing her book Afterworlds. At first I loved this because it was so interesting to read about an author's journey through the publishing world. But as the book went on and as I read more of Afterworlds, I began to hate Afterworlds more and more. That made it almost awkward to read the contemporary part of the story. How could I be excited with Darcy if I hated her book? Had I actually picked up her version of Afterworlds at BEA (without the contemporary YA author chapters), I would have DNF'd it. It almost made me laugh that she sold her duology for $300,000 and it was a freaking shit book.

Then as the book came to its final 100 or 200 pages, I realized two things:

• 1. Sometimes it felt like the romance had a bigger focus than the writing/author part of the story, and that annoyed me.


• 2. Darcy was young and immature.. and that annoyed me even more.

Why did the romance have to take over?

This is rare for me to actually say, but I was pissed that the romance started taking over. The big, central conflict of the story wasn't really about writing or publishing; it was about the romance having a hitch. Ugh.

Darcy is too young and careless to be living on her own

And Darcy started a pathetic spiral down into "idiot" territory. At the beginning of the book, her sister gave her a budget. She had $100,000 from her advance and two years to live in New York. Her sister said: spend $x on rent and $x per day on living (food, etc.). Well, Darcy did the following:

• Got an apartment out of her price range (like $1k per month over or something)


• Ate out at expensive restaurants like EVERY FREAKING NIGHT. So she went waaay over her "spend $x per day on living" budget. Seriously, have you heard of cooking?


• Missed her writing deadlines and begged for extensions.


• Missed her uni deadlines.


• Missed her lease renewal deadline.

Seriously, is she trying to prove to the world that she's too young to start a career and live on her own? Her lack of common sense and independence started to really piss me off.

Give me another book about the life of an author

I absolutely LOVE that idea for a book, and there were certainly bits in this book that I enjoyed. It was a lot of fun to read about the writing process, meeting (or missing) deadlines, having ARCs for BookExpo America, and so on. But I was disappointed to see the romance take over that awesome part of the book. And even more so, I was disappointed to find that half the book was both boring as shit and completely unnecessary.



Review originally posted on Nose Graze

[nightingalereads]

I actually found this disappointing, especially since I loved Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. But hats off for fitting two books in one.