Zevin's Elsewhere

I'm writing because my unstated, but really more serious, New Year's Resolution was to write about what I read, either here in my blog, or in my journal. But, really, I'm discovering that blogging is more fun.

I just now finished a novel titled Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. I would probably not have picked this up on my own, but J., a colleague whom I respect very much, recommended it to me. It's the story of a teenage girl, Liz, who dies and is transported to an afterlife called Elsewhere. And Elsewhere is neither heaven nor hell, really much like our earth, except that people age backwards.

Anyhow, the first two-thirds weren't all that great. But the last third or so was fascinating. And I cried all through the last 20 or so pages. And this is weird because I almost never cry in books. OK, I admit that when I read The Hobbit, I cry every time when Thorin Oakenshield dies, but other than that, I really don't. And I do not know how to explain how or why this book affected me this way. But I sat on my couch with Guinn and Polly and cried and cried for all the loss that people experience. And I cried for all the people I miss. And I cried for the people in my own life that I've lost. For some reason, I never have proper tissue (you know, Kleenex or something) at home. I do in my office, but not at home. So I sat and cried and cried black eye-liner and blue eye-shadow into lengths and lengths of toilet paper, and I don't even know why. And I just kept crying. And I kept getting more and more toilet paper from the bathroom, as my make-up made this huge mess. And that's almost funny (I'm laughing now), the blue glittery eye-shadow on these handfulls of toilet paper. I guess that reading the book, finishing it anyway, made me thing about loss. I guess that, more than anything, maybe it has to do with thinking about how S.W., a friend of the family, had died recently. It really "got" to me, and then this novel was maybe too much. And, of course, there are all the losses, big and small, that I dare not even mention for fear that I'd never stop writing. I'm OK, really. I just needed to post my entry about Elsewhere. I suppose I'm glad that I read it. It makes me thankful just for life.