Everlost by Neal Shusterman

Nick and Allie don’t survive the car accident…but their souls don’t exactly get where they’re supposed to go either. Instead, they’re caught halfway between life and death, in a sort of limbo known as Everlost: a shadow of the living world, filled with all the things and places that no longer exist. It’s a magical, yet dangerous place where bands of lost children run wild and anyone who stands in the same place too long sinks to the center of the Earth.

When they find Mary, the self-proclaimed queen of lost kids, Nick feels like he’s found a home, but Allie isn’t satisfied spending eternity between worlds. Against all warnings, Allie begins learning the “Criminal Art” of haunting, and ventures into dangerous territory, where a monster called the McGill threatens all the souls of Everlost.

In this imaginative novel, Neal Shusterman explores questions of life, death, and what just might lie in between.


i was having this discussion with Karen, who I work AND blog with, that Shusterman's novels take me about thirty pages before I'm "hooked". Karen thinks he grabs the reader right away. Does anyone have any feelings on Shusterman's writing style?

Anyway, my review, Nick and Allie are killed in the same car accident, and when they "wake up" nine months later, there is Lief, this strange, alone, little boy who has been in Everlost for a very long time. Lief wants to stay - Nick and Allie want to go home. But when ever they stay in certain spots to long, they sink - but they don't know where they are sinking to.

Eventually they meet Mary. Nick "likes" her. Allie does not like her. And something is off about this commune (lack of a better world). The kids don't act like living kids and Allie is suspicious. Allie gets the boys in trouble by the Haunter and the McGill (WHO I LOVE HIS STORY) get his hands a few of our leads and then comes the rescuing part.

It's a great world and I am going to start Everwild as soon as I finish The Summoning. Allie is a great protagonist that doesn't follow the rules because she should. She is too quick with her actions and finds herself in trouble. It's why Nick is a great coutnerpart for her. He thinks things through - mostly. Lief is this little (old?) boy who goes through so many changes in the book. At first he's kind of a brat and selfish, then he wants to be like everyone else and gets sucked into videogames, and then he reaches a state of nirvana.

Skinjacking is a skill only Allie (so far) can do which I think is going to make her the "it" thing in Everlost in the upcoming books.

Some quick thoughts:
Two love stories - one is already broken and I love it.
Shusterman did a great job tying his characters together and making them impact one another
There is rumor of a Shusterman movie - AWESOME
In the book it takes nine months to be born and nine months to die
There are dead spots in the world -including the twin towers - great way to remind teens about the past
Nick has chocolate permanently smeared across his face :)