Reviews

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

jennrocca's review

I gave this a fair shot. I just couldn’t get into it. No connection for me, though I wanted to like it. Finally, the library needed it back and I gave up.

tashaseegmiller's review against another edition

5.0

A beautiful exploration of grieving and loss, of sisterhood, of love, of compassion, of healing.

vi0letskies's review against another edition

Couldn't connect to the writing style. Would love to try again another time. 

glopezs15's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad tense

5.0

bibliobrandie's review

2.0

Julia Alvarez is one of my favorite authors so I was thrilled to see she had a new adult book out. Sadly, I had to force myself to finish this one. It’s really disjointed and the characters are not at all developed or likable. It touches on themes of immigration and mental illness and loss, but in such a shallow way that I’m not really sure what she is trying to do here.

thepetitepunk's review

Struggled with this one :( Not sure what it was, but I kept spacing out while reading. There was something about Afterlife that made the story hard to follow. A few scenes here and there stuck out to me, but otherwise there wasn’t anything too memorable for me.

✧ ✧ ✧

≪reading 31 books for 31 days of july≫
╰┈➤ 1. intimacies by katie kitamura
╰┈➤ 2. convenience store woman by sayaka murata
╰┈➤ 3. shout by laurie halse anderson
╰┈➤ 4. lemon by kwon yeo-sun
╰┈➤ 5. here the whole time by vitor martins
╰┈➤ 6. i’m still here: black dignity in a world made for whiteness by austin channing brown
╰┈➤ 7. the worst kind of want by liska jacobs
╰┈➤ 8. come as you are by emily nagoski
╰┈➤ 9. the swimmers by julie otsuka
╰┈➤ 10. fables: book one by bill willingham
╰┈➤ 11. the wild robot by peter brown
╰┈➤ 12. red to the bone by jacqueline woodson
╰┈➤ 13. afterlife by julia alvarez

jess_mango's review

4.0

Sisters, grief, community, and immigration. More thoughts later...

mollshamrock's review

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

100booksyearly's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

chriskeil's review

1.0

I typically do not rate books one star primarily because I don't finish them if I am not engaged. I did this one because it is a book club book and relatively short. For me the book was too disjointed and touched on too many important issues. It begins with the death of her husband, then goes into illegal imigration, followed by mental illness then global warming and finally Buddist teachings. Too much for me. I would have rather the author take one or two story lines and go into more detail. Also the author did not use quotes when characters are speaking to each other. Difficult to follow in so many ways.