I'm going to do a podcast with 2 other from my clas, Vilma and Delphie. We all have different books and in this post I'm just going to prepare a bit for the podcast, and write the differences and similarities between our books.

We all have the same category in the books that we're reading, and it's death, 

Delphie is reading the world-wide best seller The fault in our stars. I sense some resemblance between our books. First of all the main topic in these two books is death, but in two complete different ways. In Delphies book you follow Hazel, a young girl who has a progressive lung cancer and you read about her journey towards survival and about her love towards another boy with cancer. Whilst in my book the main caracter is already dead before you even read the first word. The plottings are also  different. In my book you read about Elizabeth, who is living her life as dead in Elsewhere. And the plot in Delphie's book is like I said about a girl who's fighting to survive. 

Vilma is reading Thirteen reasons why. It is a book about a girl who also has passed away before you acutually start reading, just like in my book. I guess that's one of the similarities. Another similarity is that they both have some kind of ''afterlife'' or what you should call it. In Vilmas book she left behind a bunch of videotapes explaining why she killed herself, which causes a lot of emotions among the living who watches them and in my book the entire story is played after the main character is dead. ,A difference is how they died, in my book Elizabeth is in a hit-and-run and in Vilma's book the main character commits suicide.

After reading all of their posts, I feel very eager to read both of their books. If you want to read more about the plots, and much better summaries of their books, visit their blogs! 

We didn't plan the group meeting very well. I actually had another lesson when the rest of my group had the group meeting, so unfornutately I didn't attend. But I'm going to make a post anyway and wright an excerpt from the book and explain why I choose it. (Which we should have done and talked about during the second meeting...)

It's a rather long excerpt I've chosen;

I think of it like a tree, because every tree is really two trees. There's the tree with the branches that everyone sees, and then there's the upside-down root tree, growing the opposite way. So Earth is the branches, growing up to the sky, and Elsewhere is the roots, growing down in opposing but perfect symmetry.

They're talking about the difference between Earth (life-the living) and Elsewhere (death-the dead) and that you're always close to those who have departed. I think it's a beautiful thought, and I agree. I also think that we are in some way close to those who have died, I don't know if I think of it like two trees, but there's something there.

Our group, Karolina, Kerstin, Nora and myself had a group meeting to exchange our thoughts about the book. I think it went very well, we all had pretty united opinions and all of us really likes the book! Kerstin is unfortunately in Spain (bad for us, good for her) so our only option was to call her on skype. Due to the poor internet connection, we had to keep our group meeting brief.

We all think the beginning was dismal, but 'lighter times is coming' haha. When Liz understands, and process that she can't return to her former life on earth we think the book is going to get more happy. Hopefully she will make friends, and poeple to hang out with. By now she has met her dead grandmother in elsewhere, Betty, so at least she's not alone. When we talked about our interpretations about the ending of the book, someone (can't really remember who though) said that maybe there's a chance that Liz will make the ultimate choice to return to earth as a baby, with a new life and new family. Since in Elsewhere everyone ages backwards, you'll get younger and younger until your a baby again and can make the choice to return to earth. Before our discussion I hadn't thought about it, but maybe she will return? I can't wait to read the end! Another thing we talked about was that we hope that after she accpets her fate she would fall in love or something!  :) Nora and Kerstin was a bit ahead of Karolina and me, I overheard them talking about some boy in the book! I hope I heard correctly and that it will turn out to be some kind of romance. :)

A short summary of our group meeting is that it was fun to hear their point of view of seeing things that's happend in the book, it was also fun to discuss how we think the book will end and just to connect our thoughts. Hopefully Kerstin is home from Spain when we have the next gathering so it will be easier to talk to her!

I felt my bed bobbing, up and down and up again. When I sat up my forehead hit something hard, out of nowhere. What is this, the roof can't be this close. Then I heard someone, she almost yelled. She was mad because I woke her up when I hit my head on the bottom of her bunk (I thought it was the roof...) She looked different compared to the other girls I had seen, in my life. But I'm not the one to judge, since she told me I was bald and I stroke my hand on the top of my smooth skull I didn't have the authority to judge anyone else's hairstyle. Besides this is only a dream and dreams can be pretty unpredictable. We talked for a while and I really liked her. She told me to call her Shandi. She also told me she'd gotten shot, right in the head. I could see the gunshot wound at the right side of her skull, the side where she was lacking hair. It was all so weird, my dreams have never felt so three-dimensional But I played along. I'm probably going to wake up soon anyway.

We walked towards the deck, and as soon as we left our room (our cabin) it was clear that my dream took place on a boat. This ship was so weird. The most  passengers were old, I mean like really old. We, me and Thandi, met the lead singer in my favorite band, Curtis Jest, and for a little while everything was okay. Then after a while everything felt weird and I wanted nothing more then to come home. Even though I had just been here for like a couple of hours it felt like an eternity. It felt like I was in a life-long dream. My whole body felt panic. I just wanted to go home. It didn't matter what I did. I was unable to get off this ship and return home. I didn't want to be here anymore on this ship filled with old people heading off to god only knows where. We went back to our cabin and just after a couple of minutes a note slipped under our door. The note told me to go to the observation deck NOW. The content of the note was clear, but the reasons wasn't. Why? But I went. 

When I arrived at the observation deck, the top floor of the ship, I saw a couple of my friends from school and a couple of my teachers as well. The scene was set as a church. They were all dressed in black, and to my surprise none of them were smiling. An altar started from were I was standing and led to a coffin. On each side of the altar there were a couple of rows with benches, almost every bench was full. I walked in to the middle of the benches. The altar that was dressed with a long carpet. No one seemed to see me, so I kept on walking. When I reached the front row I saw my mom, my dad and my brother. All three of them had bloodshot eyes and they were all frowning. This can't be possible? Is this what I think it is? I walked toward the coffin and carefully looked over the black edge. I saw myself, lying with my fingers tangled together, wearing some kind of blond wig. It's true. This is my funeral. 

This book is something unique. It's not like the other books I've read, which is a good thing. It's special. I've read the first couple of chapters now and first I was quite surprised. First the story began with an action with someone named 'Lucy' and I just thought it was Elizabeth's (Liz) sister or something, but after I kept on reading I found out it's her dog. The whole first chapter is read from Elizabeth's dog perspective, and how her owners death affected her. Simply a dog's point of view. I thought the whole book would be about the dog, so I figured my interpretation was false (I thought it would be about Elizabeth's after life, where she would live as a ghost or something.) So I was shocked. Then when the second chapter begins It's about Liz. So like I said I've only read a few chapters, but I can't wait to read more. What I've read so far is great! 

I'll keep you posted   

Welcome to my blog!

I'm going to update this blog whilst I'm reading the book. Week after week I'm going to write about what's happened in the book and my opinions about it, etc.

Why I chose this book; By reading at the back of the book I got intrigued and anxious to read it. I think that's the sign of a great book and a great author. The author, Gabrielle Zevin has written lots of books and I actually recognized her name. I haven't read her other books, Yet, but I remember  seeing her name before. Those are the main reasons why I chose this book. I also thought the story of the book was very unusual which made it more interesting. What I got from reading at the back: It's about a sixteen year old girl, Liz who is in the beginning killed in a hit-and-run accident. It doesn't say that she acutally becomes a ghost but to me it's obvoius that she does. It's like one life ends and another begins - Altough she's actually dead, but her afterlife begins. (My interpretation anyway.)

BYE