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Beyond Here
twelve year old Ashlee Greene keeps her feelings inside, and inside is where she ends up. Dealing with her parents' divorce and being essentially kidnapped by her mother she holds onto it all until a car crash takes her to a new world within herself.It is here in a place called Motherland she comes face to face with her feelings and emotions as they are now living, breathing entities. With the help of a warrior named Grief and a talking flower that sings nonsensical songs named Vol she is on the path to a place called Centre where a fabled throne can lead her to wake up...that is if she even wants to.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 5, 2017
1 person is currently reading
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 15, 2020
This story was a delight and unique! The author draws you into a tale with multiple angles, each just as sharp as the last. The vibrant characters and environment draw you into a wonder-filled world you wish you could be a part of... Well except for certain realms and kingdoms that even their inhabitants wish were somewhere else. D.F. Matthews, I tip my hat to you and look forward to more in the series... pancake butt and all!
April 25, 2019
What if your feelings were personified inside you, and your mental health affected their lives and their world?
Ashley has had a rough go. Her parents split and her mom kidnaps her to go live in a trailer with a Facebook boyfriend in Florida. When this misadventure ends in a car crash and with Ashley in a coma, while stuck inside herself she must go on a quest to restore her emotions to their proper places, and hopefully to wake up!
This book was super creative and well written. It has kind of a Labyrinth/Wizard of Oz feel, but I've never read anything exactly like it. My favourite part of this tale was undoubtedly the Silly Lillies! Gingerfickle! XD Little Vol was a delight, as were Grief and Jealousy, who the author perfectly personified in a human form.
It ends on a bit of a cliffy and now I want to know what happens next!
Ashley has had a rough go. Her parents split and her mom kidnaps her to go live in a trailer with a Facebook boyfriend in Florida. When this misadventure ends in a car crash and with Ashley in a coma, while stuck inside herself she must go on a quest to restore her emotions to their proper places, and hopefully to wake up!
This book was super creative and well written. It has kind of a Labyrinth/Wizard of Oz feel, but I've never read anything exactly like it. My favourite part of this tale was undoubtedly the Silly Lillies! Gingerfickle! XD Little Vol was a delight, as were Grief and Jealousy, who the author perfectly personified in a human form.
It ends on a bit of a cliffy and now I want to know what happens next!
April 2, 2023
A Modern Allegorical Fable: A family divided by unfulfilled desires and foolish decisions is drawn back together by a tragic car wreak, and daughter Ashlee slips into a coma and is lost in an allegorical world of her own mind’s creation. In this damaged landscape, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Grief, Jealousy, and all her doubts, thoughts and memories become actual characters that hound or defend our heroine as she seeks “To take control of Motherland … Lay claim to the vacant throne, and … wake up in (her) own land.”
A creative mix of “Through the Looking Glass” adventure, an epic quest back to the real world, and ornate, high diction makes this YA work compelling, interesting and fast paced. Matthews crafts excellent images: horned Anger tiptoes “on his cloven hooves, moonlight glanced off the sickle-like blades clutched in his blue hands.” Grief lifts his blade and “The katana blade drank in the light causing it to gleam as though it was a fragment of a star he managed to contain in his hands.” In the ultimate climatic battle, Jealousy hammers at her opponent, “Each punch was like a release valve letting off the steam from her mind.”
Ashlee is emotionally as well as physically damaged–her mother and father’s messy break-up has deeply hurt her—the theme of her internal journey is summed up in this excerpt: “What a horrible thing love was. How it could take control of someone and then abandon him or her when they needed it most? How could that emotion blind someone until they crash into reality leaving only a twisted heap of a person in its wake. She would never give herself over to such a two-faced emotion.” The Queen of Joy is deposed and the Queen of Sadness rules, and all of Ashlee’s wayward and miserable thoughts gather in a gladiator arena to cheer blood sport, for “When there is no happiness, watching the suffering of others can bring you such pleasure.”
My favorite character was Vol, the Silly Lily, who starts so fragile and innocuous but becomes a powerful guardian in the end. As Vol says herself, “A gosh darn clusterduck of gingerfickled proportions!”
This was a very creative read and I look forward to finishing the trilogy.
A creative mix of “Through the Looking Glass” adventure, an epic quest back to the real world, and ornate, high diction makes this YA work compelling, interesting and fast paced. Matthews crafts excellent images: horned Anger tiptoes “on his cloven hooves, moonlight glanced off the sickle-like blades clutched in his blue hands.” Grief lifts his blade and “The katana blade drank in the light causing it to gleam as though it was a fragment of a star he managed to contain in his hands.” In the ultimate climatic battle, Jealousy hammers at her opponent, “Each punch was like a release valve letting off the steam from her mind.”
Ashlee is emotionally as well as physically damaged–her mother and father’s messy break-up has deeply hurt her—the theme of her internal journey is summed up in this excerpt: “What a horrible thing love was. How it could take control of someone and then abandon him or her when they needed it most? How could that emotion blind someone until they crash into reality leaving only a twisted heap of a person in its wake. She would never give herself over to such a two-faced emotion.” The Queen of Joy is deposed and the Queen of Sadness rules, and all of Ashlee’s wayward and miserable thoughts gather in a gladiator arena to cheer blood sport, for “When there is no happiness, watching the suffering of others can bring you such pleasure.”
My favorite character was Vol, the Silly Lily, who starts so fragile and innocuous but becomes a powerful guardian in the end. As Vol says herself, “A gosh darn clusterduck of gingerfickled proportions!”
This was a very creative read and I look forward to finishing the trilogy.
April 8, 2018
Witty, clever, and full of adventure. Can't wait for the next book!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews