Title; Afterlife Academy
Author; Jaimie Admans
Source; Reading Away The Days Blog Tours
Format; Kindle
Publisher; Self Published
Publication Date; 15th March 2013
Description; Even being dead isn’t enough to get you out of maths class.
Dying wasn't on sixteen-year-old Riley Richardson's to-do list. And now, not only is she dead, but she's stuck in a perpetual high school nightmare. Worse still, she's stuck there with the geekiest, most annoying boy in the history of the world, ever.
In a school where the geeks are popular and just about everything is wrong, Riley has become an outcast. She begins a desperate quest to get back home, but her once-perfect life starts to unravel into something not nearly as great as she thought it was. And maybe death isn’t really that bad after all...
Welcome to Afterlife Academy, where horns are the norm, the microwave is more intelligent than the teachers, and the pumpkins have a taste for blood.
Goodreads Average Rating; 3.77*s
My Rating; 4*s
Would I recommend this book? I'd recommend you try it out, yes.
Will I read anything else by this author? I would like to try something else out, yes. I have at least one of her other two books on my to-read list.
Could I reread this book? I think I could reread this book at some future point in my life.
My Review; This book, well, to be honest it kind of pissed me off sometimes. Actually it wasn't the book that pissed me off, it was Riley. And maybe Anthony a bit too, but mostly Riley.
Why did she piss me off exactly?
Hmm, lets see.
Wade this, Wade that. Now, I don't like to use certain words most of the time, but Wade is a certain C word. That comment he made near the beginning of the book made me seethe.
It was like Riley would have a moment of enlightenment about him and then BAM! "but it wasn't his fault. But I love him." No dear, you're making ridiculous excuses for him. Surely you're smarter than that. Right? Right?
She also seemed childish at times, and I hated how her boyfriend always came before her parents. "Love of your life" or not, your parents should mean more to you than that.
All she could talk about was Wade or going home. I felt like she was making progress as a character and then we were back to square one.
Riley, well, sure she was very annoying, and I totally didn't love her character, but there were times when she was a not-so-bad character and I could kind of understand her wanting to go home and such.
I've not been so mad at a character or a book since I read Heart of a Stripper by Cyndi Harris, and yet, I managed to like this one much more. And I managed to finish it. Which wasn't really a major feat as this was an easy read.
I'm still wondering how I can be so infuriated by characters and by a book...and yet still enjoy it.
Not everybody is going to love this book, but I think that a lot of people could get on with it and like it at least. I mean, I'm giving this book 3.75*s and I got annoyed at it so many times! Well, it is more like a 3.99*s.
The plot, well, not too much happened really, but the concept was original. Basically, if you die before you finish school, which, because this is set in Great Britain means you would be 16 or under, (though the law is changing with that soon,) you end up at the Afterlife Academy. (There is also a Primary school for those who die younger than secondary school age, but we don't hear much about that.)
Before you can go anywhere is in the Death World you have to graduate, which isn't like normal graduation where you take tests and pass and are then dumped into the real world. There are no tests and it can take you weeks or years to graduate. Also not your average classes.
I thought this was an interesting idea. I mean, aren't we all curious about what happens when we die? Do we get reincarnated? Is there a heaven and hell? Do we become ghosts?
That's something most of us want to know. Something I'm definitely curious about, which is why I like to read books about the afterlife. Not that this book concentrated too much on that. Mostly this book concentrated on the grief death causes and getting over that grief, but rather than getting over the death of someone else, you have to get over your own death. Get over the fact that you can never really talk to your family or friends again, and for Riley, someone who saw their life as perfect, that's hard to get over.
Jaimie looks at it from a couple of different sides in the book. Where Riley doesn't want to be at the Afterlife Academy and thinks that she doesn't belong there, there are several other students who feel like they belong there, or chose to be there. We don't really go deeply into those other people's stories, but it is interesting to see everything and how people are getting over, or have gotten over, their own deaths.
Death would really be a hard thing to get over. The death of yourself I mean. If it was unexpected and you ended up somewhere like the Afterlife Academy how would you react? Personally I have no idea how I would react to something like that and so Riley's complaints are slightly relatable at times. Even if I don't think my life is as perfect as she thinks hers was.
I think that, for how I was feeling today, this book was perfect. I was a little worried about it because today was a bad day for me and I've thought of some things that I haven't thought of in a long time, but this book was perfect for me. To help me really put things into perspective.
Sure, the love was pretty insta love like. Sure, Riley's character was majorly annoying and her boyfriend was an ass hole. As was her supposed best friend. Sure, Riley (and several other characters) could be pretty mean and bitchy at times...but this book was actually quite enjoyable and now that I think about it....I'm going to put the rating up to 4*s. I'd definitely try something else by Jaimie Admans and I'd recommend that you try this book out. It will piss some people off. Others will love it with all their hearts. Others, like me, will love at hate this book all at the same time.
Oh! And I think the cover is really pretty.
Author bio:
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Jaimie is a 28-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, drinking tea and watching horror movies. She hates spiders and cheese & onion crisps.
She has been writing for years but has never before plucked up the courage to tell people.
Afterlife Academy is her third novel and she hopes you enjoy it. There are plenty more on the way!
Giveaway:
2 Afterlife Academy notebook, pen, magnet, and signed postcard swag set (INT)
Ends 31st May
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