"Everlost" by Neal Shusterman

"Nick and Allie don't survive the car accident...but their souls don't exactly get where they're supposed to get either. Instead, they're caught halfway between life and death, in a sort of limbo known as Everlost: a shadow of the living world, filled with all the things and places that no longer exist. It's a magical yet dangerous place where bands of lost children run wild and anyone who stands in the same place too long sinks to the center of the Earth.

When they find Mary, the self-proclaimed queen of lost kids, Nick feels like he's found a home. But Allie isn't satisfied spending eternity between worlds. Against all warnings, Allie begins learning the "Criminal Art" of haunting and ventures into dangerous territory, where a monster called the McGill threatens all the souls of Everlost."-goodreads 

This book has been on my TBR list for a while. People told me it was good, but no one told me just how amazing it was and that if I liked 'different' kinds of Dystopias that almost didn't even seem like they were that I had to read this book. If I'd known that I would have read it sooner.

This is a dystopian novel published well before the Dystopian craze, so it hasn't been appreciated as much as it should have been. I love dystopian novels but I especially like it when the reason it's a dystopia, the controlling element that's creating the world so it runs as it does, so that everything is controlled, I like it when that's different. For example, in "The Dark and Hollow Places" there's no government creating such a terrible world, it's the fact that they're surrounded by ZOMBIES. In Everlost, the element is that the characters are Afterlifes. They are stuck in Everlost, a land that seems to be between the living and wherever the dead are supposed to go. The children are in the living world, but no one knows they are there. The only place where they are safe from sinking into the ground like the lost souls that they are is if they're on dead spots-- places where people have died-- and places that have a lot of love and memory still in them.


Which brings me to one of my favorite settings and elements of the story, The Twin Towers. There are many Afterlifes still living in the beautiful places that are the twin towers, because no one will forget them. It's safe for them and they still get to appreciate their beauty and live there in Everlost. There are other places like this as well, but they're the main ones of the story. 


The Afterlifes were fascinating on their own. The way they could forget themselves and what they looked like, and the way some of them acted. It was bizarre, and a concept (along with the rest of the world that is Everlost) that just seemed really brilliant to me. The world itself is probably my favorite part of the book.


The main characters were really great as well, they seemed very real. I tried to think about how I would react if I suddenly came to Everlost because of my untimely death and didn't know what was going on; and it was probably just how I would react. It's incredibly realistic.


The twists and turns. I really did not know where the story would end up while I was reading the last few chapters. I did not think about the coins at all or what they did, and I didn't think that Mary was doing what she was doing. I know it's a trilogy so I had thought that nothing much was going to happen at the end because that's how it was starting to turn out, but then the last few chapters. Wow. Lots happened. 


I really can't say anymore because I'm going to spoil everything, but Everlost was really good and if you enjoy an odd dystopian novel or more importantly a really excellent sci-fi novel that touches on so many different themes and ideas, you should definitely pick up Everlost. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy!
Thank you very much Simon&Schuster for surprising me with a review copy in preparation for the third book, coming soon.
Reader's Note: Review copies in no way, shape, or form change how I'd review a book, and they never  will. UNBIASED.