Review of Everlost by Neal Shusterman

Everlost by Neal Shusterman is the story of a boy and a girl, Nick and Allie, who are in a car crash (in different cars) and are both killed. They collide with each other on the way to the light and don’t make it. They awake as afterlights, children who died but didn’t make it to the light (adults do not become afterlights.) They make their way to the city and to the twin towers which still exist in Everlost and where many children live led by a girl named Mary.—Don’t read the rest of this paragraph if you don't like spoilers--They eventually get captured by a monster named the McGill, which turns out to be Mary’s brother, who sunk into the center of the earth then crawled back out, in the process forgetting what he looked like and becoming the McGill. Mary shows him a picture of himself and he’s restored to his old appearance. Nick discovers that if you hold a coin in your hand the light will appear and you have the option of going into it. Mary knew this and was hiding it. At the end of the book Nick and Mary are enemies. Nick is working to give every kid the knowledge and option of going into the light, and Mary is trying to keep them from it. Allie is off with the McGill, now called Mikey, doing her own thing.
I really enjoyed the book. I thought it was an interesting premise, an afterlife of only children. I think it’s good that it deals with death and the afterlife, without getting into very religious terms.
As a writer, I learned from this book that you can deal with all sorts of subjects in writing for kids. It’s just your approach. Also, I learned that a new twist on an old theme can be really interesting. Ghost stories have been around forever, but this book really seemed new and intrigueing.