I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams.

Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now.

This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?

Short and Sweet Review

Amber arrives home one day and she thinks everything is normal until her mother screams when she sees her. Soon after that Amber learns that she died seven years ago after being hit by a car while she was riding her bike. Throughout the course of the book we can see how Amber’s death affected those around her and see how they reacted, and we also see Amber struggle with the kind of person she was before and why she would be given a second chance to come back.

After Life is a short book but it will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions. We have multiple POVs but our main character is Amber. We see Amber now and she does a lot of reflecting on the past and at times it’s a problem especially when she wants to reconnect with her ex-boyfriend Calvin. I thought Amber was an interesting character because she died when she was 17 so she still has the teenage mindset but if she was alive she would have been 24. Like most teenagers, Amber made some mistakes and you can see that she wants to make up for them she also tries to fix her relationship with her younger sister Melissa. I did like Melissa because she was the one who accepted Amber coming back the best because she never really thought of Amber’s death as a goodbye but more of a see you later and always talked to her sister. I did enjoy the past and present timeline and different POVs, we get to see how Amber’s death either directly or indirectly impacted the lives of those around her and we even get to see what happened on the day she died.

Overall, I really liked this book. In the After Word Forman explains why she wrote this book and how in Judaism when someone passes its customary to say “May their memory be a blessing,” and we really get to see that in this book. This is a heartfelt book that tackles grief and also how to cope and move forward.