Kai met Avery only once–in the moment he died saving her life. Now when he’s not using his new healing powers to help people, he watches helplessly as Avery’s life is unraveled by his death. To help her, he risks everything by breaking the rules, dangerously blurring the barriers between life and death.
Review
Avery has lived through a tragic accident. She survived, but the boy who jumped in the ocean to save her didn’t.
Now she isn’t the carefree happy go lucky girl she used to be. Her boyfriend (what a jerk) broke up with her because he can’t deal with the drama. Her mom left her family and her mental health seems to be getting worse rather than better. This girl really has a lot going on.
Kai, the boy who died saving her life, has kept a close watch on her life as a ghost in the afterlife. He sees she is not living life to the fullest, and decided to take matters into his own hands. He wants to rescue her again.
Avery is actually doing really well considering all she is facing. She is working hard in her father’s chocolate shop (what a fun detail in this book), and pulling more than her weight in the family. She also takes great care of her mother, and deals with the ups and downs of a bipolar in a very mature way. Naturally she fears she is going to have to deal with the same issues, especially since she has gone through such an ordeal. She really needs someone to take the burden, open her eyes, and help her live again. Someone to accept her in her broken state, and help her accept that it’s ok to be broken, that she can heal from it, and be a new Avery that doesn’t have to be exactly the same Avery as before. And that is fine.
Kai has gained a tremendous amount of experience having lived a hard life, and having died so young. He sees true value, and knows how to heal a broken heart. He is able to reach Avery in a way no one has been able to in the months since the boy died in the ocean.
But when Kai’s time is up, and he must return to the afterlife, it seems as if there will not be a possible bright outcome for these two broken, kindred souls.
This book had me aching a lot of the time. Kai is so misunderstood. He could have had such a better life if someone would have seem the potential in him. Luckily the last year of his mortal life he met Charles, and was offered somewhat of a chance, but it made me so sad for his circumstances, and others like him.
This book also had me thinking a lot about the whole idea of the afterlife. I do believe in life after death, but I rarely dwell on the fact. I tend to live for the here and now, because I have so much going on in the here and now, and don’t sit and think about what I will do when I am dead.
The idea that there are ghosts out there working to help life along her on earth, is a nice thought to dwell on, and I appreciate the thoughts this read raised.
I mostly enjoyed that this was a book that was so different from the many books I have read this year. This is a very captivating love story, one of true love, but with a real different spin to it, that had me thinking about it in between the moments I was reading it, and eagerly going back to see where the book would lead. I could not for the life of me imagine how Miss Beard was going to bring this all together, but she did it beautifully, and very originally, leaving me feeling nice and warm inside having come across true love and a happily ever after.
About the Author
Sarah Beard is the author of YA novels Porcelain Keys and Beyond the Rising Tide. She earned a degree in communications from the University of Utah and is currently pursuing an MFA in writing from VCFA. When she’s not writing, she referees wrestling matches between her three boys and listens to audiobooks while folding self-replicating piles of laundry. She is a breast cancer survivor, a baker of sweets, a seeker of good love stories, a composer of melancholy music, and a traveler who wishes her travel budget was much bigger. She lives with her husband and children in the shadow of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains.
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