Book Review: The Afterlife of Holly Chase

I am not even gonna pretend on this one. If you are only going to read ONE book this Christmas Season, it should be THIS one!! The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand is a modern CHRISTMAS CAROL retelling and I could NOT put it down!!!

My homeschool group is learning about Dickens and A Christmas Carol this month, and so I just sorta FELL into this book by accident while searching for a book that would interest my high school girls. Before I even assigned pages to read, one student already finished the book AND LOVED IT!! And I downloaded it to pre-read before my students got it and DEVOURED it over Thanksgiving break. Ok…I am getting ahead of myself…first let’s talk about what the heck this book is about. THEN I will come back to what I liked about it!!

Ok…the basic plot of the story revolves around Holly Chase. She is a spoiled 17-year-old Hollywood brat who has EVERYTHING she ever wants and treats people like total garbage. She is NOT a nice person. Because of her horrible behavior towards others and general lack of charitable Christmas spirit, she is visited by ghosts on Christmas Eve. They show her scenes from her past, present, and future in an attempt to convince her to change her ways before it is too late. I hope this is all ringing a bell…because it should be sounding VERY much like the classic Mickey Mouse show we all watched when we were kids…or if you wanna get specific…like the classic Dickens tale of Ebenezer and his BAH HUMBUG attitude. Holly doesn’t mutter any humbugs, but she throws out A LOT of WHATEVS…like any good Gen Z-er. Sadly, unlike Scrooge McDuck, Holly laughs at the ghosts and does NOT wake up a changed human. She continues being horrible until…YOU GUESSED IT… she dies. It IS called THE AFTERLIFE OF HOLLY CHASE after all!!!

AND her death brings us to the main part of the book. THE AFTERLIFE. After Holly dies, she is forced to work for a top-secret company called PROJECT SCROOGE. At PS, they work each year to help ANOTHER lost soul…or Scrooge. Holly is NOT alive, but she is also not quite dead. She is basically a 17-year-old zombie who never ages or dies but is NOT really living either. After years of working for Project Scrooge, she becomes the new Ghost of Christmas Past and each year tries to save a lost soul. Until THIS year. This year the Scrooge is someone her own age…someone who reminds her of HER. SO…she decides to break the protocol of her job and MEET the Scrooge…aka Ethan…and become friends with him. And THAT is all I am gonna say about THAT.

NOW…on to what I liked/didn’t like about this book. First off, I think it must be said that THE AFTERLIFE OF HOLLY CHASE is a YA book. It is written for teenagers/young adults and uses situations and language that are appealing to kids that age. This is NOT A Christmas Carol. This book has A Christmas Carol FLAVOR… but is a totally unique retelling with completely different characters, storylines, and twists. There is a teen romance vibe and lots of teen vernacular, but DO NOT let that fool you. The story itself is SOOOO well written. I personally love that both me AND my 14-year-old can read this one and enjoy it for TOTALLY different reasons. She will probably LIKE that there are teens kissing and lots of drama. I could take it or leave it, but stuck around for the major plot twists that NEVER STOPPED COMING until the very last page. WHICH is why I really loved this book. It is NOT often that a do not figure out the ending or mystery in a book, but this one took me by surprise.

Spoiler alert. If you don’t want ANY spoilers, skip the next paragraph. I am just gonna talk about what PARENTS might want to know before passing this book on to their kiddos. On the rating scale, I would give this one a PG13. It is pretty vanilla as far as inappropriate stuff for the teens in your life. Kissing. Dating. Lots of lies (as in the character is constantly telling lies and sneaking out). There is one situation where Ethan asks Holly if she wants to “come back to his apartment” and she says “that” would only complicate matters. Literally THAT is all they say to each other in exactly those words. And then they move on. The one thing that I didn’t like, is that there are a few instances of the characters taking the LORD’S name in vain. Just a couple of times, but enough to grate on my nerves. AND last but not least…DEATH. There is A LOT of death and mourning in this book. The characters lose their parents at a young age, and they do not sugar coat over the situation or the feelings. They discuss cancer and its affects as well as how the child felt having a parent suffer through cancer. It wasn’t the MAIN focus of the story and didn’t drag on and on, but I imagine it could be triggering for sensitive teens. That being said, I had NO problems passing this one along to Emersyn, who is 14, as well as the other 8th and 9th graders in our homeschool group.

SOOOOO there you have it!! If you are looking for fun book to curl up with and ignore all of the holiday chaos, this is the one. I have actually been on a bit of a Christmas reading kick since November. Mostly, I have been reading a BUNCH of books in the CHRISTMAS ESCAPE series. They are fun, clean, “beach read” type books that are all super funny, don’t require my brain to work too much, and get me in the Christmas spirit. PLUS, they are free on Kindle unlimited!! I will pop back over later this week and let you know which ones are worth trying to fit in before Christmas!!

If you need more book suggestions, I listed a few of my favorites HERE, HERE, and HERE. Happy reading!! We are getting snow in Washington (state) this weekend, so I plan to cuddle up with my Kindle and a mug of cocoa for a LARGE part of this winter storm!! Let’s chat favorite books again soon. –Jessica