Review: Hereafter by Tara Hudson

genre: paranormal
age: YA
rating: 1/8 tentacles

I could not finish this. I think I got to Chapter Five or Six and was still wondering where the story was. Maybe some people will say that I didn’t give it a fair chance, but I read enough to get a feel for the writing, to decide it was not good writing, and to realize that I couldn’t muster up any feelings except apathy for the main character (or any other characters for that matter). Amelia is too wishy washy. She goes on about how she doesn’t remember her last name or when she lived but she kind of hangs out in her cemetery and she doesn’t even care enough about herself to turn around and read the tombstone. If she doesn’t care, why should I?
Here is how the story starts. Amelia sees a boy drowning. She desperately wants to save him from sharing her terrible fate but can do nothing to help because she is a ghost. Yup, yup, I’m still with you. She can hear his heart slowing. She wills him to wake up, to swim to the surface. His heart stops. …And then starts again? You lost me. I’m no medical expert, but I’m pretty sure that if someone is drowning and their heart stops, it’s not going to randomly start again. Maybe it’s possible in some one in a million type scenario, but we’ve only just got this story going and already I’m in doubt. My suspended disbelief is sputtering and losing altitude.

After his magic revival, the boy swims to shore where a crowd of people who know him and are shouting his name have miraculously appeared. We are shown the gaping hole in the guardrails on the bridge or overpass where his car ripped through and plummeted into the river below. So if he was in the car by himself, where did all those people come from? According to the internet, it only takes about two or three minutes to drown. So how did all those people AND an ambulance get down to the river in two or three minutes? Were they driving in a caravan formation? Is there a convenient stairway down to the river? There may be some reason for all of this, but it is unusual and so must be explained.

When Call-Me-Joshua comes back to find Amelia, their interaction is stiff and boring. He says “O-kay” a bunch of times and Amelia looks at her dress. Despite the car crash and the rescue (which were both played down), there seems to be very little action in this story. There’s next to no tension, and thus little to propel the story forward. The first twenty pages consist mostly of introspection, which might have been interesting if it led us somewhere. Also, who requests to be called by their full name when all of their friends/family/whoever clearly call them by a nickname?

I really wanted to enjoy Hereafter because I’m a huge fan of ghost stories, but it was extremely disappointing. If you were planning to read this, I recommend putting it down and going to read A Certain Slant of Light instead—it’s a better version of the same type of story. If you really want to be spooked, More Than You Know is amazing. It’s one of my favorites.

**A little of my negative response can be attributed to an exhaustion with these plot-less teen romances. Maybe you like them, but I haven't the stomach for these types of books.