Irene Dunphy is 36 years old. She lives in Boston, and she has an okay middle-management job that allows her to go out clubbing most nights with a couple of friends. Then one day, she wakes up on the side of the road, having only a vague recollection of what happened the night before. She gets in her car and drives home, to discover that she's apparently been gone for some time. Her mail has piled up and her answering machine is full of messages, mostly of the "Irene, where are you?" variety.

Slowly, it dawns on her that she's dead, and she begins to grapple with the question of why she hasn't gone through the tunnel to The Light. She meets a still-living neighbor -- a 14-year-old boy named Jonah -- who knows a lot more about death customs than any well-adjusted teen should. Together, they begin to figure out how to get Irene to move on.

I'll be honest: I didn't much like Irene. Besides her obvious drinking problem, she struck me as vapid and shallow, and way too snippy to Jonah. Although I didn't much like him, either. By the thirty-percent mark, I was sick of their bickering and ready to bail. But I got interested again when Irene began learning her way around ghostly Boston, and eventually she becomes at least a little self-aware.

So in the end, I was glad to have stuck with the book. But I'm on the fence about sticking with the series. I gather from reviews on Goodreads that Bruce plans at least five more volumes, one of which is already available. It's possible that the author made Irene such a piece of work in book one in order to give her plenty of room to grow in the following books. The danger with that game plan is that you end up with a main character who is so unlikable that your readers won't bother seeing it through.

Maybe I'm just not the audience for this type of urban fantasy. The book has plenty of four- and five-star reviews on Goodreads. If you don't mind shallow, cranky protagonists,Hereafter might be right up your alley.

Well, pretty much anything edited by Datlow and Windling and the above.

 

(BTW- why do Bookday things keep asking favorite, don't they know anything about readers?)

Even though she has to work the next day, Irene goes out drinking with the girls.  Her friends sensibly tell Irene to take a cab with them but Irene, realizing that she needs her car to get to work the next day hops behind the wheel of her car.  Irene then suddenly finds herself standing on the side of the road next to her car.  It takes a while for her to realise that not only is she dead, no one can see her or hear her.  Luckily for Irene she meets, Jonah whose interest in death rituals has allowed him to find a spell which allows him to speak to and interact with the dead.  Irene, with Johah's help, embarks on a mission to learn what comes next or more specifically, what to make of her undead life.

Fans of urban fantasy won't find much to draw them into this story.  Irene is indeed a ghost but this is far from a typical ghost story and is actually more of an examination of life - specifically what matters and what doesn't. There is little action to speak of and the one major question which is asked throughout the novel really doesn't get answered.  Despite that fact, Hereafter doesn't have an incomplete feeling and this is probably because I personally could not take another minute of reading about Irene the protagonist.

Irene is an extremely unlikable character and it is worth noting that I don't believe Bruce means the reader to identify with, let alone like Irene. She is very much in denial that she died as a result of drinking and driving and might even have a drinking problem.  Though Irene is a supposedly 36 year old woman with an M.B.A (a fact we are reminded far to often), Jonah, her 14 year old sidekick, is far more mature than her.  Irene vacillates constantly between fits of rage and remorse. She lashes out cruelly at Jonah though he does nothing but help her, risking the trust of his parents and his good school record.  At times, I honestly could not understand why Jonah kept coming back because Irene was certainly not worthy of his attention, let alone his concern.  Irene is beyond self absorbed and only seems to show momentary concern for Jonah when he is in physical danger. 

The plot of Hereafter is quite slow moving.  Though Jonah encourages Irene to plan and act with agency, the only time Irene acts with any agency is when she is being petulant.  As a result, events just seem strung together with Irene simply reacting and Jonah playing the role of the clean up man. Hereafter is set up as an existential crises which is a boring read at the best of times.  I kept waiting for Hereafter to go somewhere and the ending was simply anti-climactic after all of those pages of angst.

 

 

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I picked this book up wanting a break from Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies and it was a good choice too.

Irene, our protagonist, is stranded as a ghost after she had been in an accident. Well what do you expect to happen when you get behind a wheel after a night of bar hopping? But it takes her sometime to catch up to what had happened to her. It was only when she ‘bumped’ into a fourteen-year old Jonah, who is obsessed with anything to do with death and afterlife, that she is given a crash course on her new ‘life’.

Sounds interesting or mundane? I suppose it depends on your take of ghosts, and for me it was interesting to take the ride with Irene. Finding out the rules that even ghosts have to follow and why humans cannot see ghosts were some of the interesting theories that this book presents to its readers. Irene is a pretty interesting girl. She doesn’t do anything halfway – not even getting drunk. To watch her struggle with her new form, getting used to it or even trying to find better options was actually kind of fun. And what do I say about Jonah. He is so obsessed with death that it made me wonder if he was a bit abnormal. Yet he too is a quirky character that I enjoyed reading about. Putting these two together, their dynamics is a hilarious one even though I thought Irene was being outright rude to Jonah towards the beginning.
The plot is simple and straightforward and because I haven’t read a similarly themed book before, I couldn’t really take a guess at what the author might throw at me next. It was fun finding out though. The narration style is simple and flows smoothly. The mix of dry humour and lots of one liners woven into the plot made it much more fun to read.

Overall, an entertaining book that provided me with a good change and couple of hours of complete enjoyment.