This book takes a interesting, new perspective of a heaven that can be told so many ways. In fact, heaven isn't what its even called. Instead, you are taken to the land of Elsewhere. This book tells the story of a girl who after dieing can't seem to let the past behind her. You don't have to have lost someone to read this book or to have it change your view and your life. A book that is a definite must-read for anyone over the course of their life. This book will not disappoint.

Almost 16-year old Elizabeth "Lizzie" "Liz" Marie Hall was heading to the mall for a prom dress when she gets hit by a taxi cab. She is killed and is now on a boat heading to a place called `Elsewhere', where all of the people who have died go before they get sent back to Earth as a baby again. It sounds like the perfect end to a horror story, doesn`t it? But no, it is just the beginning of a great fast-paced novel. Liz now has to live with her grandmother who she was named after, but has never met until now. Liz wants to turn 16 though! She wants to fall in love, graduate high school and collage, not turn 14 again! In Elsewhere, you don't grow older, you grow younger until you are a baby again and have to be sent back to Earth. Liz almost becomes a ghost, gets in huge trouble for attempting Contact, which is trying to talk to the people on Earth, and so much more; but she meets some good friends, and her grandmother, to help her through it. What happens after that, in this fiction/science fiction book, is for you to find out yourself.
I would most definitely recommend this book for girls about 12 years old or older. When I was reading it, I just kept turning the pages; I had to see what happened next. Gabrielle Zevin, the author of this great book, really kept me on the edge of my seat. As I was reading Elsewhere, in the back of my mind I saw a little film strip of what I was reading. Wouldn't it be cool if there really was a place like Elsewhere after we died? This is now one of my favorite books and I'm really glad I read it.

Elsewhere is a satisfying book that expands your thoughts of where you go when you die. Liz Hall is a 15 yr old girl who dies just before her 16th birthday. Waking up on a cruise ship not only is the surprising thing in her newly born life. Finding out that she was killed in a bicycle accident. While finding her way around the ship Liz takes and adventurous ride on her way to Elsewhere where she meets her long lost grandmother. In Elsewhere where instead of life progressing ahead, you r life progresses backwards, so that you, can be sent to Earth to begin a new life. There in Elsewhere, Liz meets the love of her young life just before the few years to begin in her new life.
Elsewhere is and inspirational book that is a page turner. I enjoyed the thrilling story an would be glad to read it one more time. I think Gabrielle Zevin is a awesome writer and I will be sure to read another on of her books. I hope that anyone who reads this book enjoys it as much as I did.

The idea of going to elsewhere after death was great. Instead of growing older you become younger with each year. I thought that was a great way of thinking. The love story was sweet not captivating but sweet. However, I thought it was strange that you can talk to people on earth through plumming!

While Elsewhere has grand ambitions, it falls short on the execution. Mrs. Zevin seems unsure of where she wants her book to lead, and the plot meanders through job-seeking, romance, and some completely irrelevent pursuits before its very satisfying end (the book is almost worth it, if only for the last 20 pages or so). In the middle, however, the reader must suffer through the annoying dialouge (reminiscent of grandparents and ever so predictable)and a frustrating, omniprescent narrator who likes to switch tenses and/or talk to readers as if they were 4-year-olds. In the same way, the talking dogs and other ilogical parts are a turnoff.
Also, as some have mentioned, the romance between Liz and Owen is not only pointless but subtly disturbing. He is a thirty-something. She is a teenager. HELLO?

Overall, not interesting to its intended audience, though younger children may enjoy it.