Overview
...but their souls don't exactly get where they're supposed to get either. Instead, they're caught halfway between life and death, in a sort of limbo known as Everlost: a shadow of the living world, filled with all the things and places that no onger exist. It's a magical, yet dangerous place where bands of lost children run wild and anyone who stands in the same place too long sinks to the center of the Earth.
When they find Mary, the self-proclaimed queen of lost kids, Nick feels like he he's found a home, but allie isn't satisfied spending eternity between worlds. Against all warnings, Allie begins learning the "Criminal Art" of haunting, and ventures into dangerous territory, where a monster called the McGill threatens all the souls of Everlost.
In this imaginative novel, Neal Shusterman explores questions of life, death, and what just might lie in between.
Synopsis
IT BEGINS WITH AN ACCIDENT.
Nick and Allie don't survive the crash, and now their souls are stuck halfway between life and death in a sort of limbo called Everlost. It's a magical yet dangerous place, where bands of lost souls run wild and anyone who stands in the same spot too long sinks to the center of the Earth.
Frightened and determined, Nick and Allie aren't ready to rest in peace just yet. They want their lives back, and their search for a way home will take them deep into the uncharted areas of Everlost. But the longer they stay, the more they forget about their pasts. And if all memory of home is lost, they may never escape this strange, terrible world.
Publishers Weekly
Shusterman's (Full Tilt) enigmatic novel imagines a purgatory where only children go, with its own vocabulary and body of literature plus a monster named the McGill. After a car accident, teens Allie and Nick awaken 272 days later in Everlost. "It took nine months to get you born, so doesn't it figure it would take nine months to get you dead?" says the boy who discovers them, a nameless, lonely child they call Lief (an "Afterlight" who is 100 years old). In Everlost only the young exist, because adults "never get lost on the way to the light." The World Trade Center is there, too, home to Mary Hightower, a 15-year-old shaman of sorts and author of countless books (e.g., You're Dead-So Now What?). Shusterman uses excerpts from Mary's books (with an increasing sense of menace) to segue from one chapter to the next. Allie's flight from Mary's kingdom of "perfect routines," and her attempt to rescue Nick and Lief from a six-year-old spectral gangster lead her into a conflict with the monstrous McGill (with "sharp, three-fingered talons for hands,... its mismatched eyes wandered of its own accord"). Along the way, Allie learns the art of "skinjacking" (inhabiting the living), and Nick discovers a thing or two about the mechanics of Everlost, much to Mary's dismay. Shusterman's landscapes seem both familiar and ghostly, just the right mix for this fascinating limbo land that readers can only hope will provide the setting for more books to come. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Shusterman's (Full Tilt) enigmatic novel imagines a purgatory where only children go, with its own vocabulary and body of literature plus a monster named the McGill. After a car accident, teens Allie and Nick awaken 272 days later in Everlost. "It took nine months to get you born, so doesn't it figure it would take nine months to get you dead?" says the boy who discovers them, a nameless, lonely child they call Lief (an "Afterlight" who is 100 years old). In Everlost only the young exist, because adults "never get lost on the way to the light." The World Trade Center is there, too, home to Mary Hightower, a 15-year-old shaman of sorts and author of countless books (e.g., You're Dead-So Now What?). Shusterman uses excerpts from Mary's books (with an increasing sense of menace) to segue from one chapter to the next. Allie's flight from Mary's kingdom of "perfect routines," and her attempt to rescue Nick and Lief from a six-year-old spectral gangster lead her into a conflict with the monstrous McGill (with "sharp, three-fingered talons for hands,... its mismatched eyes wandered of its own accord"). Along the way, Allie learns the art of "skinjacking" (inhabiting the living), and Nick discovers a thing or two about the mechanics of Everlost, much to Mary's dismay. Shusterman's landscapes seem both familiar and ghostly, just the right mix for this fascinating limbo land that readers can only hope will provide the setting for more books to come. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.VOYA -
The fates of teens Allie and Nick intertwine after a car crash in which both of them are killed but neither of them dies. They become trapped in Everlost, a world of dead spaces parallel to the living world and inhabited by children and teenagers who died but did not move on. Everlost has its own mysteries, dangers, and rules. Through their encounters with its other inhabitants, Nick and Allie gradually discover how to survive. Just as in the real world, there are bullies, like the menacing Haunter, and compassionate souls who believe that they know best for everyone, like Mary Hightower, self-appointed mother figure who gathers children to live with her in Manhattan's Twin Towers, ghostly buildings that now exist in Everlost. Feisty Allie learns that she can "skinjack," or inhabit the bodies of the living and control their movements, and gets into a contest of wits with the terrifying pseudo pirate, The McGill. Placid Nick spends part of his eternity trapped inside a pickle barrel and endures an eternal chocolate stain on his face (luckier than Speedo, who traverses Everlost in the wet bathing suit he was wearing when he died). This book is great reading, fast paced, and suspenseful but also full of humor. It is an adventure novel as well as an exploration into the meaning of life, death, and reality. Memorable characters, an unpredictable story, and an entirely new setting make it a must-read for fantasy readers and fans of Shusterman's other novels such as Full Tilt (Simon & Schuster, 2003/VOYA October 2003) and Downsiders (1999/VOYA August 1999).Justin Garwood
Have you ever pondered if that brightness at the end of the tunnel is a light of love or flames? What if, on your way to discovering the truth, you were detoured to a place that was a shadow of our world? "Nick and Allie's lives didn't quite flash before them; there was no time." After colliding on their way to the light, these teenagers are prematurely blasted through the black walls of the tunnel, only to wake nine months later in a familiar, yet foreign land. Tribes of children wander between fear of the soul-stealing monster, McGill, and safety with Mary, Queen of Snots, in the ghost structure of NYC's Twin Towers. Everlost is a place where fortune cookies never lie and standing still means sinking to the Earth's core. Neal Shusterman's harrowing tale explains how regardless of what people believe, the universe has its own ideas. Reviewer: Justin GarwoodKLIATT
When Nick and Allie are killed in a car crash they find themselves in a kind of limbo called Everlost, superimposed on but invisible to the world of the living and populated by the spirits of children and teenagers. The two young people make their way to the ghostly Twin Towers in New York City, where a girl named Mary tenderly presides over a community of these "Afterlights." Nick falls in love with Mary and is ready to settle in, but Allie is determined to somehow claw her way back to the world of the living. She sets out to find the Haunter, who knows how to pull things out of the living world, and finds out how to "skinjack," entering the bodies of the living. She also encounters the McGill, a gruesome monster who captains a ghost pirate ship, and she and Nick discover there may be worse things than being dead. This creepy, suspenseful ghost story by the author of such YA fantasies as Dread Locks and Full Tilt is full of inventive details, like the "Gravity Fatigue" that threatens to pull Nick and Allie down to the center of the Earth, and it will please horror as well as fantasy fans. KLIATT Codes: JS--Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2006, Simon & Schuster, 318p., $16.95.. Ages 12 to 18.—Paula Rohrlick
KLIATT -
To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, September 2006: When Nick and Allie are killed in a car crash they find themselves in a kind of limbo called Everlost, superimposed on but invisible to the world of the living and populated by the spirits of children and teenagers. The two young people make their way to the ghostly Twin Towers in New York City, where a girl named Mary tenderly presides over a community of these "Afterlights." Nick falls in love with Mary and is ready to settle in, but Allie is determined to somehow claw her way back to the world of the living. She sets out to find the Haunter, who knows how to pull things out of the living world, and finds out how to "skinjack," entering the bodies of the living. She also encounters the McGill, a gruesome monster who captains a ghost pirate ship, and she and Nick discover there may be worse things than being dead. This creepy, suspenseful ghost story by the author of such YA fantasies as Dread Locks and Full Tilt is full of inventive details, like the "Gravity Fatigue" that threatens to pull Nick and Allie down to the center of the Earth, and it will please horror as well as fantasy fans. (An ALA Best Book for YAs.) Reviewer: Paula RohrlickKLIATT -
To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, September 2006: When Nick and Allie are killed in a car crash they find themselves in a kind of limbo called Everlost, superimposed on but invisible to the world of the living and populated by the spirits of children and teenagers. The two young people make their way to the ghostly Twin Towers in New York City, where a girl named Mary tenderly presides over a community of these "Afterlights." Nick falls in love with Mary and is ready to settle in, but Allie is determined to somehow claw her way back to the world of the living. She sets out to find the Haunter, who knows how to pull things out of the living world, and finds out how to "skinjack," entering the bodies of the living. She also encounters the McGill, a gruesome monster who captains a ghost pirate ship, and she and Nick discover there may be worse things than being dead. This creepy, suspenseful ghost story by the author of such YA fantasies as Dread Locks and Full Tilt is full of inventive details, like the "Gravity Fatigue" that threatens to pull Nick and Allie down to the center of the Earth, and it will please horror as well as fantasy fans. (An ALA Best Book for YAs.) Age Range: Ages 12 to 18. REVIEWER: Paula Rohrlick (Vol. 42, No. 1)School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up-Nick and Allie are killed in an automobile accident and meet as they are heading down a tunnel toward "the light." They land in Everlost, the space between the living and the end of the tunnel, and meet Lief, from whom they learn that Afterlights cannot walk where the living walk and that they cannot be seen or heard by the living. Allie is determined to go home, so she and Nick set out from the accident site in upstate New York and the safety of Lief's forest for New Jersey. Even though they have been warned about the McGill, a dreaded, evil monster, they slowly make their way, eventually arriving in New York City. There they meet Mary Hightower, who cares for Afterlights in the destroyed World Trade Towers, keeping them safe from the McGill and the Haunter. (In addition to children, buildings and objects can also cross into Everlost if they were much loved.) In their ensuing adventures, they are captured by the McGill and suffer a horrible fate before Nick discovers his true purpose in Everlost. Schusterman has created a world in which nothing is as it seems. As the teens struggle to make sense of this alternate afterlife, they also grow and develop as people. They learn to question those who have put themselves in power, and they begin to see what is truly important. Shusterman has reimagined what happens after death and questions power and the meaning of charity. While all this is going on, he has also managed to write a rip-roaring adventure complete with monsters, blimps, and high-diving horses.-Lynn Evarts, Sauk Prairie High School, Prairie du Sac, WI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
Death isn't an easy subject to write about, but Shusterman handles it deftly, as he explores what happens to two children who are "lost" on their way "towards the light." Nick and Allie have never met, but both are involved in a fatal car accident. They find they are neither living nor spirit; they now exist in Everlost. Learning to cope with their new state of being, they arrive in New York City, where a band of lost children have taken up residence in the Twin Towers, which still stand tall in Everlost. Led by Mary, the Queen of Snot, threatened by the Great McGill and his pirate band, these children have come to accept that this is where they belong and will always be. But Nick and Allie know there must be something-somewhere-else, and they are determined to find out what and where that is. A quirky sense of humor pervades, which helps to lighten what would otherwise be a disturbing concept. But the overall message (that there is existence after life and purpose to that existence and a destination when one is finally ready for it) is one of comfort. For anyone who has lost a friend or loved one at an early age, this is a good read. (Fiction. 12-15)From the Publisher
"Marvelously inventive...and magically beautiful." — Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game“A rip-roaring adventure complete with monster, blimps, and high-diving horses.”—School Library Journal
“Shusterman elegantly reveals the complexities of his parallel world…a funny irreverent, and memorable adventure.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“A unique exploration of life after death.”—Booklist