HEREAFTER - TARA HUDSON - REVIEW

Book: Hereafter
Author: Tara Hudson
Publisher: HarperCollins Childrens
ISBN: 9780007430505
Rating: A

A stranded spirit, a sudden love! Beautiful elegiac love story that crosses the divide between the living and the dead, in a powerful vision of longing and loss. "A tender and poignant love story with a ghostly twist." Becca Fitzpatrick, bestselling author of Hush, Hush This debut paranormal romance will leave you breathless. 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 is doing everything in his power to destroy their new-found 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.

Hereafter is one of those novels that the moment it was released I wanted it. Not only was the cover gorgeous but the story sounded amazing and when I finally got my hands on a beautiful hardcover copy a couple of months ago I dove straight into the story and finished it in less than a day. It really us a stunning story and it took me back to a time when YA was just getting started. I personally feel that YA has someone what slowly deteriorated over time  Like after twilight it hit a peak of such good books (Hereafter is in that section - That section is called 2011) and whilst the YA now is good it's just not as good as then. Needless to say this book was stunning, and I enjoyed every single minute of reading this.

The story in this is actually really different. There's not much ghost in YA, and the only other real contender is Anna Dressed in Blood but this is complete different type of Ghost story. This isn't  a horror, it's a pure romance, ghost story with a twist and it drew me from page one. The story is intricate and detailed and whilst I did feel some parts were unnecessary and space fillers it was a beautiful novel and the rest of the story was pleasure to read.
All of the chapter left you thirsty for me and every time I told myself to take a break I physically couldn't pull away. The plot was just so intriguing and held that air of mystery about it that just thrills you so much. In fact the story did a lot. It had my heart racing but also had the power to evoke the right amount of emotion to really make me feel the book and it was gorgeous.

As for the writing I was literally drowning in the words. Hudson has such a beautiful, whimsical and magical prose that I just fell in love with. Her descriptive style - which I loved - build up vivd scenes and worlds in my mind and for the hours that I read this I was transported to a whole other place. It did well to display emotions and help me understand what the characters were feeling however I feel s though the fact it was put into first person from Amelia's perspective really did limit what we could see Josh was feeling and to a certain point I felt as thought it was almost capping him.

The characters were perfect in this story. At times I wondered what they were doing there in the first place, for instance ELi, but of course later all was revealed and everything slotted into place. The characters were really well formed though. Limiting the amount of them allowed us to really get to know about them and what I did like about this novel was that everything was explained to us about this ins and outs of Ghosts and their worlds. Of course in this book the characters are still fresh and we'll definitely see more to them come book 2 and 3 but from I've seen so far I'm definitely ready to meet them again.

Overall this book was a full five stars. I don't often use this word to describe book but this novel was beautiful, and it's not even the beginning. I can't wait to see what Hudson has next for us.