October - Giles High School

Traveling To Elsewhere
by Chelsey Williams
Have you ever wondered what comes after this life? Where do you go? Who do you meet, if
anyone? Is there something better awaiting our arrival? These thoughts plague millions of people
everyday. You might have even thought about it a few times yourself. So, why not write a book
about it?
Well, Gabrielle Zevin, author of Elsewhere, takes this kind of thinking to a whole new level.
With her erratic imagination, she creates an out of this world dimension, that’s not your standard
Afterlife. She paints a vivid picture of a place called Elsewhere where time is reversed. This is
where everyone goes, no matter what.
The main character Elizabeth Hall, or Lizzie, wakes up to find herself sleeping somewhere
other than her bed at home. She is scared and confused, like any normal person would be. She
soon realizes that she is traveling on a ship, and no one knows where to. Aboard this ship are
millions of people of all ages. Some people are famous, and some are old. Everybody is different.
They have nothing in common, except the fact that they all have disabilities or injuries. Lizzie
herself has stitches in the side of her head.
What is even more alarming is the fact that she does not understand how she came to be on
the ship. She does not know where her family is or why they left her alone. However, everything
starts to make sense when she receives an invitation to come to the top deck of the ship. There she
finds a set of binoculars. Through the lenses, she sees her family at her funeral. Then everything
clicks together. All the puzzling pieces, all the strange people, and all the weird memories make
sense. She is dead. Everyone on the ship is. They are all traveling to Elsewhere.
There, Lizzie has to come to terms with her new life, and leave the old one behind. Can she
do it? How can she leave everything she has known behind? Who will help her overcome the past
and move on to accepting the life she has now? If you read this book, you will find not only the
answers, but also an amazing book that will stay in your mind forever.
“Every so often a book
comes along with a premise
so fresh and arresting, it
seems to exist in a category
all its own.” – The New
York Times Book Review.
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