About the Book
-
Author:
- Gayle Forman
- Genres:
- Contemporary
- New Adult
- Paranormal
Cover Story: Ephemeral
BFF Charms: No, Mixed Bag
Talky Talk: Potential Poet
Bonus Factor: Religious Differences
Anti-Bonus Factor: Ableism, Dan Scott Award For Awful Parenting
Relationship Status: Overshadowed
Cover Story: Ephemeral
Even though Amber doesn’t literally turn into a swirl of flower petals, it’s still a beautiful way to show how she exists between worlds.
The Deal:
Seventeen-year-old Amber Crane is very much annoyed to find her parents’ door locked when she comes home from school, and even more so when her mother screams at the sight of her. And who’s that teenager next to Mom in the car? It’s Amber’s nine-year-old sister Melissa. She’s a teenager because Amber has been dead for seven years.
In the meantime, everyone who knew her – family, friends, boyfriend, teachers, even strangers – deals with the impact of her life, death and reappearance in their own ways. Sometimes in order to let go of the dead, you need to let them in first.
BFF Charms: No, Mixed Bag
I know Amber isn’t meant to be a likeable character at first. The contempt she has for Melissa (“a weirdo who has no friends”) makes that clear. But even later in the book, Amber’s character development didn’t feel earned to me. At the same time as she’s berating herself for being a “shitty sister”, Amber is using Melissa’s social media account behind her back to send messages in her name. The sad part is that Melissa thinks the world of her big sister, giving her credit for acts of kindness that never happened. She considers Amber the first person she came out to as a lesbian, for example, even though Amber’s first assumption on seeing a flirty text is that Melissa has a boyfriend. The affirmation Melissa remembers must have been all in her head.
Honestly, I found everyone else’s points of view much more interesting than Amber’s. Her school photographer quits his boring job to become a traveling journalist. Her teacher adopts a dog and falls in love with the shelter manager. Her parents struggle through divorce, religious conflict, old grudges and new friends. The Cranes’ neighbour, the only Black lesbian police detective in town, mentors Melissa through her coming-out while dealing with a loss of her own. Amber’s boyfriend Calvin drops out of school and goes to a literally and figuratively dark place. Even her frenemy Casey, a typical Mean Girl, has cause to think twice about her actions. Melissa was my favourite, though. She might have idealized Amber a little, but that’s by far the healthiest coping method of anyone in her family.
Swoonworthy Scale: -1
Ghost love has nothing swoonworthy about it, at least in this book. Amber still has her sight and hearing, but none of her other senses, so she can count Calvin’s ribs but not feel his body. Also, they’re in the back room of the sleazy dive bar where he works. It’s one of the least sexy sex scenes I’ve ever read – and believe it or not, it goes downhill from there as you read the flashbacks to when Amber was alive.
Talky Talk: Potential Poet
After seven years, Amber’s English teacher is still upset that she turned in a blank paper for a writing assignment (her own obituary, ironically enough). No wonder – she really can write, or rather narrate, when she tries. This is her description of bicycling downhill:
In winter, I pedal down hard and fast. The wind bites my face, but anticipating the warmth awaiting me makes the pain almost pleasurable. On milder days, in spring or early fall, when the afternoon sun oozes like honey, I take my time, coasting down, arms at my sides. On those days, the wind sometimes feels like it might lift me up right out of the seat, like I could fly the rest of the way home.
Bonus Factor: Religious Differences
Amber’s Catholic mother questions everything she’s ever believed since her daughter’s death. Her atheist father, on the other hand, takes one look at Amber after she comes back and starts praying on the spot. Nick Flores, the Filipino photographer who took Amber’s graduation picture, observes that his own people have a less final attitude to death than Westerners do; he believes that’s why the Cranes are struggling. The only exception is Melissa, who takes the “miracle” in her stride; that’s because she’s been talking to “the part of Amber that [lives] inside her” all along.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Ableism
As a pre-teen, Amber knowingly gave her peanut-allergic best friend a peanut butter sandwich to signal the end of their friendship. She claims that she assumed the reaction would be “mild”, but who is she kidding? Every North American school child learns that peanut allergies can be fatal.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Dan Scott Award For Awful Parenting
Amber’s so-called friend Casey Locke bitterly envies the Cranes, as her dad cheats on her mom and never has time for either of them. When rumors fly that Amber might not be dead, after Casey raised a small fortune for a memorial via crowdfunding, Mr. Locke storms over to accuse the Cranes of fraud. Casey, while embarrassed, is still a little bit pleased, because it’s the most attention her dad has paid to her in years.
Relationship Status: Overshadowed
Book, I hate to say this, but why couldn’t you be more like your big sisters – that is, Gayle Forman’s other books?
Literary Matchmaking
If I Stay by Gayle Forman tackles the same themes of grief, forgiveness and moving on, but with a protagonist I could root for and a love story I could feel.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas explores another culture in which, like Nick Flores’, the border between life and death is thin.
I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman is another story that affirms life in the face of death.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review.
