December 19, 2014

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld 3/5 stars

I received Afterworlds from edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
I didn't really enjoy reading Afterworlds by Scott Westerfield.  In fact, I was a bit disappointed by it. I read another book by the same author earlier this year, Uglies, and actually enjoyed it, so I had higher hopes for this book than were met.  All of this isn't to say that Afterworlds wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.
The Cover:
The Cover:
I have no idea what the cover shows.  It looks like a tear drop falling on a forest that went through a forest fire to me.  I don't get it.  (If you do, please tell me in comments).  However, the phrase below the image, "you thought your way here" makes sense.  You hear it in the first chapter or two and you will recognize it, but I don't want to spoil anything by explaining it.

My Description:
Every other chapter is about Darcy, a young writer, is in the process of publishing her debut novel, Afterworlds.  However, the process is not going as smoothly as she thought.  Darcy meets other authors and travels through the writing process with them.
The remaining chapters are Darcy's book about a girl, Lizzy, whose near-death experience allows her to see ghosts and travel from the land of the living to the land of the dead.

My Review:
I didn't enjoy reading Afterworlds. The Darcy storyline was uneventful and a bit boring.  Nothing exciting ever happened on that side of the story, and I greatly considered skipping every other chapter of Afterworlds as a result.  On the other hand, Darcy's book was exciting and well-paced.  I was definitely interested in its plot and enjoyed reading it.
Another issue I had with this book was the self-praise.  In every single one of Darcy's chapters, someone would come up to her and praise her outstanding book, which Scott Westerfeld just happens to have wrote.  He wrote characters whose entire purpose was to glorify his own writing.  Everytime anyone would compliment Darcy's writing, I would just think to myself, "Hmmm. That's pretty nice praise, coming from yourself." As a result, I ended up frustrated with the author as well as being unable to take the story seriously.
The characters were nicely developed, though there were only a few characters that we saw more than once.
Overall, I would not recommend Afterworlds unless you are looking for a book mainly about the publishing industry.

Phrase: Cold spot inside me

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