This book kind of touts itself as a book for fan of The Good Place, and while I think there are some similarities in terms of plot, it is lacking the same depth and strong emotions that the latter has.
Layoverland tells the story of Beatrice Fox, or Bea as she is known. The story begins with her having "ruined" the life of her younger sister and after that, in tears, she gets in a car accident and is killed. Instead of heaven/hell, she is sent to purgatory (which here, resembles an airport) and is given the task of helping people cross over to heaven by helping them realize what is holding them back. This is to atone for her "sins" on Earth. Of course, one of the first people she is paired with is a fellow teen named Caleb, who, slight spoiler here (but it is on the blurb for the book so I'm gonna say it), is the one who killed her. So now she has to decide if she should exact revenge or let him move on. Of course, surprise surprise, a blossoming romance complicates things.
I think it is fair to say that I generally enjoyed this book. Bea is a funny character, and especially the middle chunk of this book for some reason I found really good. The situation she is in is interesting. The problem is...a lot of this book feels underdeveloped, and I have some big key issues. First and foremost, it was hard to get behind Bea having to spend eons of her life atoning for her sins when, in the flashbacks within the book, she really wasn't seen as doing anything that bad. Especially once you consider the fact that she is a TEEN! She is allowed to make stupid mistakes and be a little selfish. Through the flashbacks to her life before death, Bea kind of develops but I never saw her as someone who necessarily deserved this sentence that she is given. She is incredibly argumentative and perhaps a little bit in denial but again, she is a TEEN! Who is in charge of this place! My goodness.
While this book was short and sweet and enjoyable in a simple way, I thought there was a lot of wasted potential. I kind of wanted to find out more about this purgatory place, and most of the development for that was rushed into the first few pages. Also, there are a handful of side characters but they are, in my opinion, lacking. The friendly roommate, the person who trains her, some other randos in the flashbacks, all seem pretty meh. Basically, I think the main character is fairly well developed but all the other characters are just meh and that kind of hurts the book, for me. Her romantic interest I wouldn't exactly put in this category because we do find out a lot about him but he isn't at quite the same level as Bea. Of course, this is a book for teens so I can't REALLY expect it to get as philosophical as The Good Place does (though teens are smart and watch that show and could figure it out), and it does/should do its' own thing, I just wish there had been a bit more emotional impact to it. This character's big emotional journey was just kind of meh to me, especially because I didn't feel like she necessarily needed to be in this place. Honestly, I felt like she should have been one of the people being helped to cross over, not the one being punished and having to do the helping.
Basically though, a lot of the issues I have with the book are semantics. It was a fluffy rom-com and the story was interesting, I just wanted slightly better development from it. It just needed another few minutes in the oven. And a few ingredients were also missing so maybe that is not the best example but...you know what I mean.