The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

The Afterlife of Holly Chase

by Cynthia Hand

Holly Chase has the job of saving souls, but it is her own that she realizes needs examining.
On Christmas Eve five years ago, Holly was visited by three ghosts who showed her how selfish and spoiled she'd become. They tried to convince her to mend her ways.

She didn't.

And then she died.

Now she's stuck working for the top-secret company Project Scrooge--as the latest Ghost of Christmas Past.

Every year, they save another miserly grouch. Every year, Holly stays frozen at seventeen while her family and friends go on living without her. So far, Holly's afterlife has been miserable.

But this year, everything is about to change

Reviewed by girlinthepages on

3 of 5 stars

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It took me a ridiculously long time to finish this book because around the holidays I wasn't listening to audio books that often, but I'm so glad I finished this one! The Afterlife of Holly Chase is a really fun, irreverent retelling of A Christmas Carol that focuses on Holly Chase, a failed "scrooge" who in her afterlife must work for A Christmas Carol inspired corporation called "Project Scrooge" as their Ghost of Christmas Past.

There's so many things I loved about this story. The corporate setting was hilarious in a fantasy/paranormal/retelling sort of setting (really not sure what to classify this one as!) and all to real at times now that I'm a working adult. I enjoyed reading about a protagonist who was really not that great of a person- Holly's grown some by the end of the novel but she starts off as really terrible and is really just a selfish person at the end of the day but that doesn't make her incapable of positive attributes too. I also loved her sarcastic and very teenage sounding narrative that always held a ton of contempt and distaste and a sprinkling of spoiled brat- she really reminded me of the Gossip Girl-era protagonists of the early 2000s.

Unfortunately, the book lost its way for me a little at the end- I'm still not 100% what happened and it was all wrapped up pretty conveniently. There's also a LOT of questions I still have, especially about the secondary characters (what did Blackpool do as a human? Was Dave a former Scrooge? Were the non-ghost employees humans who were alive or were they dead and stuck in purgatory too)? Yet it was still a fun and very creative take on the source material (and it's very AWARE that its based on A Christmas Carol which is fun).

Overall: One of the better YA Christmas books I've read and truly unique, The Afterlife of Holly Chase was not what I was expecting but I'm glad I read it!This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 17 January, 2019: Finished reading
  • 10 June, 2019: Reviewed
  • Started reading
  • Finished reading
  • 10 June, 2019: Reviewed