Review: Hereafter by Tara Hudson

Publisher: Harper Collins
Publishing Date: June 7th, 2011
Genre: YA, Supernatural
Pages: 416 pgs
ISBN: 9780062026774

Rating: 4 stars

Summary from GoodReads:

Can there truly be love after death?

Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life—or her actual death—she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.

Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world . . . forever.

Thrilling and evocative, with moments of pure pleasure, Hereafter is a sensation you won't want to miss.

My Review:
There has been a lot of hype for this book around the blogosphere and I was excited when I was approved by NetGalley for this book. I love a good ghost story and I found the summary of this book intriguing. I have to say that I spent all day Saturday reading this book when I should have been writing report cards for my grade 1s. I couldn't put this book down. I really liked the flow of the writing in this book. It was written in a way that made you want to keep reading to find out what was really going on with Amelia. At times I even found myself feeling really bad for Amelia; she died really young and has no memory of her life. When she starts to piece together her life with the help of Joshua she becomes very sad. I couldn't imagine missing that much of my life and being stuck between two worlds. Amelia is never fully at rest. There were a couple things that bugged me about this book though. I have to admit that the fact that Joshua and Amelia continue to carry on a relationship seems a bit unhealthy to me. One is a ghost and the other is alive. Another thing that bugged me is that things with Eli and the "bad" spirits ended abruptly. I know this is part of a series but I would have liked a little more development in that area. The book focused mainly on the character development of Amelia which was good but I was really curious to know what was going on with Eli. Overall, as I said I couldn't put this book down and I really enjoyed it. Overall I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.