On the Other Side is Carrie Fletcher's debut novel (apart from her biography called All I Know Now). I found out about her through her brother, Tom (from McFly, my all time favourite band) some years ago and been watching her yt channel and stuff since then. When she announced that she was writing a book, I was excited to see how it would turn out! And here I am, writing my review on her book :)
The Blurb:
Your soul is too heavy to pass through this door: Leave the weight of the world in the world from before.
Evie Snow is eighty-two when she quietly passes away in her sleep, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. It's the way most people wish to leave the world, but when Evie reaches the door of her own private heaven, she finds that she's become her twenty-seven-year-old self and the door won't open.
Evie's soul must be light enough to pass through so she needs to get rid of whatever is making her soul heavy. For Evie, this means unburdening herself of the three secrets which have weighed her down for over fifty years, so she must find a way to reveal them before it's too late. As Evie begins the journey of a lifetime, she learns more about life and love than she ever though possible, and somehow, some way she may also find her way back to the only man she ever truly loved...
Powerful, magical and utterly romantic, On the Other Side will transport you to a world that is impossible to forget. This is a love story like no other which will have you weeping because of the sheer joy and beauty of it all.
My Thoughts:
This was such a lovely novel! I got sad, angry (at her mother in particular and the tradition the family had.. grrr! What a cold mother she was!) and happy reading about Evie and the other characters in this story. I also had tears in my eyes at one point! The story between Evie and this guy called Vincent (you get to know him after few chapters so no spoilers there) was so sweet, and romantic and also sad. The things she had to let go because of reasons I'm not going to say was devastating.
I liked the way the chapters were divided into different sections between the three secrets she had to let go of. The chapters were divided between Evie's "afterlife" (how she ended up there, what she had to do to reach these people to get to the other side), the past (were we find out what happened when she was young and in love) and the present (the people she have to tell her secrets to). It sounds like it could be bit difficult to follow because of the timelines, but it wasn't. She did a great job with that :) There were also chapters were you first read about one person and in the middle of the page, you end up reading from another character's perspective, which also sound confusing, but wasn't :P (this whole explanations of the chapters sounds confusing to understand....oh well)
There were also moments when I had to read the same things over and over again to figure out wether some of the things that happened was a metaphor or if it literally happened. Like, for example:"my face turned into stone", is it just a metaphor or did my face literally got turned into stone?... (weird example, but you know..) So there were few times were I just sat there and didn't know if there was some magic involved or not :P Other than that, I really liked the way this story turned out. It had some disney-ish about it (like the surnames of the characters and some things that happened) and there was also a Once Upon a Time reference in there as well. I liked that :P
After finishing this, I'm pretty sure there was some real magic going on in there because of the things that happened :P
The ending was amazing and I had a huge grin on my face at the end of it (and maybe some happy tears). All in all, this is truly a wonderful "girlie book" were magic things happens and hearts gets broken. All in true disney style (that sounded weird but I wanted to write something like that so there it was). And maybe, just maybe, there's chance of a happy ending for Evie after all..? Who knows?
Guess you have to find out for yourself! ;)
I know this review sounds confusing and stuff, but I have a reason for that (for once)... I've been really tired today and my head has been a derpiederp all day (even at work I felt like I was a "walking dead"...you know.. the zombies, not the main characters) but I wanted to write this review today anyway so here it is :P
And here I am, signing off.
Bye! xxx
4/5
Next book to read: Daughter by Jane Shemilt
