Today I am sharing my review of Afterlife by Julia Alvarez. This was my IRL book club pick from last month and my first Julia Alvarez book.
Synopsis
Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.
Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?
Why did I decide to read this book
This was my IRL book club pick for August so I had to read it but I was already super excited to finally read a Julia Alvarez book.
Rating
3.5 Stars (I liked it!)
My Thoughts
I will preface this review by saying I think I am in the minority on my thoughts about this book. I think lots of people would enjoy this book for various reasons. In fact everyone else in our book club liked it more than I did. I still liked this book, a 3.5 star rating is good! I just didn’t love it as much and I’ve been putting off writing this review of Afterlife because I don’t really enjoy writing reviews of books I didn’t love but I wanted to give you all my thoughts.
This book focuses on what happens to the main character, Antonia, at a very specific point in her life after her husband dies. It is a story about what it means to be a good person and the struggles some of us face with that. The story also focuses on love, loss and family. I enjoyed the sister’s stories but I wanted more! I wanted more background on some of the characters so that I could get more invested but I know that probably wasn’t the author’s point with this story.
The writing of this book is a little different, it is stream of consciousness and I think that is why I had a hard time with it. I would say this book is more literary fiction since it is not plot heavy and there are plenty of beautiful quotes. I listened to the audiobook and at first it was hard to follow but after I got used to it I am glad I did the audio version.
This was my first Julia Alvarez book and it won’t be my last. I am very excited to read her other books, How the Garcia Girls lost their accent is on my backlist TBR to read by the end of the year.
Content Warnings
Death, Immigration, mental illness
Who I recommend this book to
If you like literary fiction and stories about loss and family this may be for you!
Get the book!
Did this review of Afterlife convince you to read it? You can get the book from Bookshop.org here. Please consider ordering it from a Black owned independent bookstore. This list of Black owned independent bookstores accepts online ordering.
