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Afterlife
The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
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?
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?
256 pages, Hardcover
First published April 7, 2020
2545 people are currently reading
44904 people want to read
About the author
Julia Alvarez
88 books4,052 followersJulia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling.
Photo copyright by Brandon Cruz González
EL VOCERO DE PUERTO RICO
Photo copyright by Brandon Cruz González
EL VOCERO DE PUERTO RICO
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,342 reviews
October 6, 2021
Another beautiful, heartfelt, exhilarating, insightful reading shakes you to the core, makes you question so many things you’ve done with your life.
The author tells us many thought-provoking issues starting from how to gather the pieces of your life after you lost your loved one, dynamics between sisterhood, their complex relationships, learning to put your needs first but also listening to people’s needs and extending your helpful hands, real and heartbreaking issues about undocumented immigrants, how to connect with the people who suffer from mental illness.
Antonia doesn’t know what to do after sudden death of her beloved husband but before rethinking about her afterlife, she has to deal with her sister’s vanishing: Izzy who is fighting with her mental illness. And of course she encounters with a girl at her door steps, pregnant and undocumented teenager. A fast and riveting start of the story hooks you from the beginning and keeping your attention alive till the end.
I’m so happy that grieving of Antonia was not depressing, bleak, disturbing and dark as I expected and I loved the idea that Antonia never wants to leave her husband and his memory behind, finding a creative way to keep his memory alive. Because we understand from the beginning, her husband has an important role to shape Antonia’s identity throughout years. He taught her important life lessons and opening herself to the goodness, reaching her hands to help the other people. He was an amazing man and I loved their sacred relationship.
This was a memorable, gripping and meaningful and one of my fastest reading. I’m so happy that the author created this poignant, touchy story after 15 years later. And I hope she won’t stop writing in near future.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for sharing this incredible book’s ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review. And I’m so happy to see a talented writer back and create new remarkable stories.
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The author tells us many thought-provoking issues starting from how to gather the pieces of your life after you lost your loved one, dynamics between sisterhood, their complex relationships, learning to put your needs first but also listening to people’s needs and extending your helpful hands, real and heartbreaking issues about undocumented immigrants, how to connect with the people who suffer from mental illness.
Antonia doesn’t know what to do after sudden death of her beloved husband but before rethinking about her afterlife, she has to deal with her sister’s vanishing: Izzy who is fighting with her mental illness. And of course she encounters with a girl at her door steps, pregnant and undocumented teenager. A fast and riveting start of the story hooks you from the beginning and keeping your attention alive till the end.
I’m so happy that grieving of Antonia was not depressing, bleak, disturbing and dark as I expected and I loved the idea that Antonia never wants to leave her husband and his memory behind, finding a creative way to keep his memory alive. Because we understand from the beginning, her husband has an important role to shape Antonia’s identity throughout years. He taught her important life lessons and opening herself to the goodness, reaching her hands to help the other people. He was an amazing man and I loved their sacred relationship.
This was a memorable, gripping and meaningful and one of my fastest reading. I’m so happy that the author created this poignant, touchy story after 15 years later. And I hope she won’t stop writing in near future.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for sharing this incredible book’s ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review. And I’m so happy to see a talented writer back and create new remarkable stories.
blog
April 2, 2020
Not long ago I read and was so taken with In the Time of the Butterflies and I was anxious to get to Alvarez’s other novels. I was given the opportunity to read her newest and I couldn’t pass it up. On a personal note, this was not the best book I could have chosen to read at this time, but fortunately there is an abundance of love and kindness and hope on these pages. Also, the fabulous writing helped me focus on reading more than I have been able to this last month. It’s an introspective story of a woman’s grief, having lost her husband and a sense of who she is without him. It’s a story covering so many things : the need to be needed, love of family, relationships with sisters especially, each with their idiosyncrasies who deeply love each other. It’s about the timely issue of immigration and about mental illness as well. It’s a beautifully written, sad but uplifting novel. Having read this makes me want to get to Alvarez’s earlier works for sure.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Algonquin First Reader’s Club and Edelweiss.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Algonquin First Reader’s Club and Edelweiss.
April 7, 2020
AFTERLIFE is a beautifully written short book about life after losing a loved one.
Antonia Vega is a retired college professor living in rural Vermont who has recently lost her husband Sam. Her husband was a beloved doctor who cared for all whether born locally or the undocumented who have come to work on the farms. It’s interesting that neighbors thought Sam’s affection for immigrants was because his wife is originally from the Dominican Republic. Not true, however, as this was just Sam’s nature. It’s a nice play on how we as people assume so much about others even though knowing little.
Julia Alvarez has interwoven nicely the relationship of four sisters, the strain of what mental illness can have on family when one is ill, and the challenges of all of a sudden being on your own. This is a book that asks a lot of questions. What do we owe ourselves and others? How do we remake ourselves after the death of a spouse?
I’d like to thank Algonquin Books for sending me a hard copy of AFTERLIFE by Julia Alvarez. All opinions are my own.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Publication date - April 7, 2020
Antonia Vega is a retired college professor living in rural Vermont who has recently lost her husband Sam. Her husband was a beloved doctor who cared for all whether born locally or the undocumented who have come to work on the farms. It’s interesting that neighbors thought Sam’s affection for immigrants was because his wife is originally from the Dominican Republic. Not true, however, as this was just Sam’s nature. It’s a nice play on how we as people assume so much about others even though knowing little.
Julia Alvarez has interwoven nicely the relationship of four sisters, the strain of what mental illness can have on family when one is ill, and the challenges of all of a sudden being on your own. This is a book that asks a lot of questions. What do we owe ourselves and others? How do we remake ourselves after the death of a spouse?
I’d like to thank Algonquin Books for sending me a hard copy of AFTERLIFE by Julia Alvarez. All opinions are my own.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Publication date - April 7, 2020
April 14, 2020
This is a beautifully written book....rich-raw-real-outstanding ‘gorgeous writing....with thought-provoking themes on love, loss, the bereaved, immigration, and the undocumented.
Less than 300 pages.
“How does the imagination of the poor age? Perhaps from much practice over the course of a lifetime— always having to imagine a better life— it stays vigorous. At a recent reading at the college, a guest lecturer spoke about the origins of Black English. This rich folk language is what occurred when African people with intensely musical and oral culture came up against the King James Bible and the sweet-talking American South, under conditions that denied them all outlets for their visions and gifts except the transformation of the English language into song”.
“And what about those who cannot bear up under deprivations, Who are traumatized and silenced by hard times? If she ever gets back to writing, Antonio wants the stories she tells— to come from that deeper, hurting place. Perhaps grief will be good for her work?”
“Broken English. The phrase once leveled at her and her sisters. She mended her broken pieces and ended up teaching Americans their own language, four decades total, three at the nearby college. What now, now that she has retired?”
“We shall see, her mother used to say. Que sera, sera”.
Mario and Jose were getting up for the first milking of the day.
“And to think: this happens before dawn every morning, with or without her insomnia to note it”.
“Wouldn’t it make a great book? She had mentioned it several times to Sam. Short chapters about the people who keep our world going? Invisible people we don’t even know about?
“Invisible to whom? Sam had a way of asking questions that always stopped her short”.
Julia Alvarez gives us an exquisite, powerful, story...sparkling with poetic vision. Complexities, and tragedies, “Afterlife”, is wise, finely observed, and a delicate balance of intimacy, and grief... taking us on a fascinating ethical journey in prose that shines from the love Antonia has for her husband who died.
A short lonely and tender novel....uncovering difficult parts of life—making meaningful connections with those around Antonia.... after her retirement, and the loss of the man she loved more than life itself.
“Personification is not merely a literary term, she used to tell her classes. Literature has to pull its weight in the real world or else it’s of no use to us”.
Antonia was sensitive about her deficiency of her Dominican primary school education....her poor sense of geography and math skills.
“A part of you dies with them, Antonio now knows, but wait a while, and they return, bringing you back with them. So, is this all his afterlife will amount to? Sam-inspired deeds from the people who loved him?”
“Could that possibly be what the aftermath amounts to: an eternity of remembering‘s? Over to you, Sam. She talks to him in her head. You always liked being the one to know. But the after life is changed him. He no longer seems interested in having the last word”.
As Beautiful as the best memories, as sad as the best songs, as hopeful as your best dreams.....
I could feel every peak and valley of Julia’s emotional challenges on my skin, and in my gut.
One of the years best books!
Deserves to win every honor it receives!!!
Less than 300 pages.
“How does the imagination of the poor age? Perhaps from much practice over the course of a lifetime— always having to imagine a better life— it stays vigorous. At a recent reading at the college, a guest lecturer spoke about the origins of Black English. This rich folk language is what occurred when African people with intensely musical and oral culture came up against the King James Bible and the sweet-talking American South, under conditions that denied them all outlets for their visions and gifts except the transformation of the English language into song”.
“And what about those who cannot bear up under deprivations, Who are traumatized and silenced by hard times? If she ever gets back to writing, Antonio wants the stories she tells— to come from that deeper, hurting place. Perhaps grief will be good for her work?”
“Broken English. The phrase once leveled at her and her sisters. She mended her broken pieces and ended up teaching Americans their own language, four decades total, three at the nearby college. What now, now that she has retired?”
“We shall see, her mother used to say. Que sera, sera”.
Mario and Jose were getting up for the first milking of the day.
“And to think: this happens before dawn every morning, with or without her insomnia to note it”.
“Wouldn’t it make a great book? She had mentioned it several times to Sam. Short chapters about the people who keep our world going? Invisible people we don’t even know about?
“Invisible to whom? Sam had a way of asking questions that always stopped her short”.
Julia Alvarez gives us an exquisite, powerful, story...sparkling with poetic vision. Complexities, and tragedies, “Afterlife”, is wise, finely observed, and a delicate balance of intimacy, and grief... taking us on a fascinating ethical journey in prose that shines from the love Antonia has for her husband who died.
A short lonely and tender novel....uncovering difficult parts of life—making meaningful connections with those around Antonia.... after her retirement, and the loss of the man she loved more than life itself.
“Personification is not merely a literary term, she used to tell her classes. Literature has to pull its weight in the real world or else it’s of no use to us”.
Antonia was sensitive about her deficiency of her Dominican primary school education....her poor sense of geography and math skills.
“A part of you dies with them, Antonio now knows, but wait a while, and they return, bringing you back with them. So, is this all his afterlife will amount to? Sam-inspired deeds from the people who loved him?”
“Could that possibly be what the aftermath amounts to: an eternity of remembering‘s? Over to you, Sam. She talks to him in her head. You always liked being the one to know. But the after life is changed him. He no longer seems interested in having the last word”.
As Beautiful as the best memories, as sad as the best songs, as hopeful as your best dreams.....
I could feel every peak and valley of Julia’s emotional challenges on my skin, and in my gut.
One of the years best books!
Deserves to win every honor it receives!!!
May 11, 2020
4.5
Antonia lives alone in Vermont. She is a 66 yr old recent widow, she is a retired English professor and writer who had came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a child. Her husband Sam had been a kind and caring American doctor in the community.
Antonia also is part of a hilarious sisterhood... she has three sisters scattered about the States, all in their 60’s also.. the oldest at present time having some mental health issues.
Also, living next door to Antonia is a farmer who employs immigrants that are kind of hiding out.. one who has brought his pregnant girlfriend over from Mexico using a Coyote.
So... Antonia is facing living alone.. in isolation, with all the challenges of her new widowed state, and the immigrants get her involved in their dilemma.. and those sisters of hers need her to help with the crazy sister..
This was just so humorous in places where the sisters interacted.
I really enjoyed it!
Antonia lives alone in Vermont. She is a 66 yr old recent widow, she is a retired English professor and writer who had came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a child. Her husband Sam had been a kind and caring American doctor in the community.
Antonia also is part of a hilarious sisterhood... she has three sisters scattered about the States, all in their 60’s also.. the oldest at present time having some mental health issues.
Also, living next door to Antonia is a farmer who employs immigrants that are kind of hiding out.. one who has brought his pregnant girlfriend over from Mexico using a Coyote.
So... Antonia is facing living alone.. in isolation, with all the challenges of her new widowed state, and the immigrants get her involved in their dilemma.. and those sisters of hers need her to help with the crazy sister..
This was just so humorous in places where the sisters interacted.
I really enjoyed it!
March 31, 2020
How many things can happen in a short period of time? After years teaching English to college students, Antonia has retired. She looks forward to spending time with her husband Sam, but he unexpectedly dies. Soon she will have even more to handle, when a young, pregnant, immigrant girl shows up and her sisters require her services in an intervention for their eldest sister.
Grief, relationships between sisters and immigration. Common enough themes, but Alvarez makes the common something new and different. There is sadness, humor, and a woman who needs to find a new way forward. A natural storyteller, the book flows seamlessly. There are also wonderful quotes from books and poems, placed in appropriate places. I enjoyed every single line of this book, her word usage was terrific.
Alvarez's first adult book in fifteen years is well worth reading.
ARC from Algonquin books.
Grief, relationships between sisters and immigration. Common enough themes, but Alvarez makes the common something new and different. There is sadness, humor, and a woman who needs to find a new way forward. A natural storyteller, the book flows seamlessly. There are also wonderful quotes from books and poems, placed in appropriate places. I enjoyed every single line of this book, her word usage was terrific.
Alvarez's first adult book in fifteen years is well worth reading.
ARC from Algonquin books.
June 19, 2020
“[Antonia] is finding it increasingly difficult to keep up her faith in people, in herself. In the past when her own stash got this low, there was always [her husband] Sam filling up her cup with his abundant kindness. She has continued to think a lot about the afterlife, especially in the absence of any sign from Sam. What, if anything, does it mean? An afterlife? All she has come up with is that the only way not to let the people she loves die forever is to embody what she loved about them. Otherwise the world is indeed depleted…”
- Julia Alvarez, Afterlife
Julia Alvarez’s novel Afterlife is a tiny thing. It is only 256-pages long, and those pages belong to a hardcover that is just larger than pocket-sized. This is worth mentioning, because there is a lot crammed into those pages.
When the novel begins, we are introduced to a recently-retired English teacher named Antonia Vega. Within the past year, Antonia’s beloved husband Sam died of a heart attack – an incident breathtakingly recounted in the dazzling first pages. While dealing with this loss, Antonia – who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic – is drawn into the orbit of an undocumented worker from Mexico, who labors at a farm near her rural Vermont home. That worker has a pregnant girlfriend, who shortly arrives at her front door, in need of assistance. Somewhat grudgingly, Antonia tries to help, all while a well-meaning – or is he suspicious? – sheriff keeps nosing around her house. To top it all off, Antonia’s eldest sister, Izzy, has failed to show up for a birthday party, causing Antonia and her other sisters (Tilly and Mona) to fear the worse.
That is a lot of plot for a little book.
With each of the balls that Alvarez threw into the air, I wondered how such a slight spine could carry so much conflict and thematic weight. After all, entire books have been devoted to exploring grief, to exploring family and sisterhood, to exploring the plight of immigrants, illegal and otherwise. And that doesn’t even account for the forays into mental illness. I worried that it would be hard, if not impossible, to give each of these elements the time and attention it deserved. More than that, I thought that the overall busyness would be a distraction, reducing Antonia’s experiences to the biblical trials of Job.
It would give away too much to attempt to explain how Alvarez pulls this off, but she does.
Despite all the twists, Afterlife never feels freighted with contrivances. It hums along briskly, and each event that pops up leads naturally to the next step in the story. More than that, each individual trial informs the other challenges faced by Antonia, so that there is a subtle interlocking of everything that occurs. All this is helped along immensely by Alvarez’s graceful prose, easy wit, wise perceptions, and love of language, both English and Spanish.
This – I am not proud to say – is the first book I’ve read by Julie Alvarez. Thus, it is hard to rank Afterlife in terms of her career output. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that this is not necessarily up there with – for instance – In the Time of Butterflies (which is currently sitting on my shelf). I got the sense, instead, that this was a bit of a valedictory for Alvarez. If nothing else, it feels personal, since Alvarez and Antonia share many similarities (the same rough age, the same immigration experience, the same profession).
Afterlife is set in 2019, with the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand specifically referenced as a timepoint. Beside the mass shooting, Antonia’s life is filled with worries, both local and worldwide. She has concerns about the treatment of immigrants along the southern border, about healthcare, about the environment, not to mention her fears of being alone, of aging. As I read this, I thought about Antonia, and how she would be reacting right now, because if she thought 2019 was a tough year…Well, as the saying goes, 2020 would like you to hold its beer.
There is a lot of sadness in these pages, and a moment or two of despair. Yet, when I finished, I actually felt pretty good. That is a testament to how fully realized Antonia is as a character. Alvarez draws her with a deft touch, making her – and the world she inhabits – feel quite real. This holds true for even secondary characters. Despite not having a lot of page-time, almost everyone who appears in Afterlife, from Antonia’s sisters to the nosey sheriff, is dealt with empathetically, and given enough resonance to make you believe they have an independent existence, and are not just plot-points meant to propel Antonia’s arc.
Importantly, Alvarez also imbues Antonia with the ability to grow and learn, so that by the time we reach the final pages, she has some measure of hope. As a reader, I did too.
- Julia Alvarez, Afterlife
Julia Alvarez’s novel Afterlife is a tiny thing. It is only 256-pages long, and those pages belong to a hardcover that is just larger than pocket-sized. This is worth mentioning, because there is a lot crammed into those pages.
When the novel begins, we are introduced to a recently-retired English teacher named Antonia Vega. Within the past year, Antonia’s beloved husband Sam died of a heart attack – an incident breathtakingly recounted in the dazzling first pages. While dealing with this loss, Antonia – who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic – is drawn into the orbit of an undocumented worker from Mexico, who labors at a farm near her rural Vermont home. That worker has a pregnant girlfriend, who shortly arrives at her front door, in need of assistance. Somewhat grudgingly, Antonia tries to help, all while a well-meaning – or is he suspicious? – sheriff keeps nosing around her house. To top it all off, Antonia’s eldest sister, Izzy, has failed to show up for a birthday party, causing Antonia and her other sisters (Tilly and Mona) to fear the worse.
That is a lot of plot for a little book.
With each of the balls that Alvarez threw into the air, I wondered how such a slight spine could carry so much conflict and thematic weight. After all, entire books have been devoted to exploring grief, to exploring family and sisterhood, to exploring the plight of immigrants, illegal and otherwise. And that doesn’t even account for the forays into mental illness. I worried that it would be hard, if not impossible, to give each of these elements the time and attention it deserved. More than that, I thought that the overall busyness would be a distraction, reducing Antonia’s experiences to the biblical trials of Job.
It would give away too much to attempt to explain how Alvarez pulls this off, but she does.
Despite all the twists, Afterlife never feels freighted with contrivances. It hums along briskly, and each event that pops up leads naturally to the next step in the story. More than that, each individual trial informs the other challenges faced by Antonia, so that there is a subtle interlocking of everything that occurs. All this is helped along immensely by Alvarez’s graceful prose, easy wit, wise perceptions, and love of language, both English and Spanish.
This – I am not proud to say – is the first book I’ve read by Julie Alvarez. Thus, it is hard to rank Afterlife in terms of her career output. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that this is not necessarily up there with – for instance – In the Time of Butterflies (which is currently sitting on my shelf). I got the sense, instead, that this was a bit of a valedictory for Alvarez. If nothing else, it feels personal, since Alvarez and Antonia share many similarities (the same rough age, the same immigration experience, the same profession).
Afterlife is set in 2019, with the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand specifically referenced as a timepoint. Beside the mass shooting, Antonia’s life is filled with worries, both local and worldwide. She has concerns about the treatment of immigrants along the southern border, about healthcare, about the environment, not to mention her fears of being alone, of aging. As I read this, I thought about Antonia, and how she would be reacting right now, because if she thought 2019 was a tough year…Well, as the saying goes, 2020 would like you to hold its beer.
There is a lot of sadness in these pages, and a moment or two of despair. Yet, when I finished, I actually felt pretty good. That is a testament to how fully realized Antonia is as a character. Alvarez draws her with a deft touch, making her – and the world she inhabits – feel quite real. This holds true for even secondary characters. Despite not having a lot of page-time, almost everyone who appears in Afterlife, from Antonia’s sisters to the nosey sheriff, is dealt with empathetically, and given enough resonance to make you believe they have an independent existence, and are not just plot-points meant to propel Antonia’s arc.
Importantly, Alvarez also imbues Antonia with the ability to grow and learn, so that by the time we reach the final pages, she has some measure of hope. As a reader, I did too.
September 17, 2020
What a story to lose yourself in. I have been meaning to read Julia Alvarez for some time, In the Time of the Butterflies, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, etc., but I just kept putting it off for some reason. Afterlife has propelled her works back to the front of the TBR pile. So many emotions and deep reflections were packed into this petite novel, I can only imagine what she does with even more pages.
The best thing about this book is the dynamic between Antonia and her sisters. I so rarely get to read things where a woman in her sixties is the main character, and this book has four of them! Alvarez writes Izzy, Tilly, Mona and Antonia with such life and candor that I can’t imagine that they aren’t based on real people. When I read the description I was drawn in by the mention of “a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep”, but I absolutely stayed for the interfamilial conflict.
At the heart of this story is grief and loss, relayed with such raw compassion that—yeah, I’ll admit it—I cried a bit. We watch Antonia struggle with loss long after the sympathy wave has dissipated. She pinballs from one crisis to another in order to distract herself from the empty space, both literal and figurative, that now inhabits her life. She’s making decisions and responding to situations differently than she had before, and is left wondering which choices are her own. (I’ve recently discovered one of my most read sub-genres is ‘Death’, so I guess this is right up my own morbid alley)
The question that Antonia, Alvarez and the reader keeps being drawn back to is a philosophical one: what do we owe one another? And also to an extent, what do we owe ourselves? There’s no easy answers provided here. None as binary as ‘nothing!’ or ‘everything!’ The answer lies probably somewhere in the middle, in the excruciatingly non-specific “something”. Yes, we owe each other something. Otherwise, what’s the point of it all?
*Thanks to Algonquin Books & Netgalley for an advance copy!
The best thing about this book is the dynamic between Antonia and her sisters. I so rarely get to read things where a woman in her sixties is the main character, and this book has four of them! Alvarez writes Izzy, Tilly, Mona and Antonia with such life and candor that I can’t imagine that they aren’t based on real people. When I read the description I was drawn in by the mention of “a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep”, but I absolutely stayed for the interfamilial conflict.
At the heart of this story is grief and loss, relayed with such raw compassion that—yeah, I’ll admit it—I cried a bit. We watch Antonia struggle with loss long after the sympathy wave has dissipated. She pinballs from one crisis to another in order to distract herself from the empty space, both literal and figurative, that now inhabits her life. She’s making decisions and responding to situations differently than she had before, and is left wondering which choices are her own. (I’ve recently discovered one of my most read sub-genres is ‘Death’, so I guess this is right up my own morbid alley)
The question that Antonia, Alvarez and the reader keeps being drawn back to is a philosophical one: what do we owe one another? And also to an extent, what do we owe ourselves? There’s no easy answers provided here. None as binary as ‘nothing!’ or ‘everything!’ The answer lies probably somewhere in the middle, in the excruciatingly non-specific “something”. Yes, we owe each other something. Otherwise, what’s the point of it all?
*Thanks to Algonquin Books & Netgalley for an advance copy!
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March 6, 2025
Julia Alvarez has a gift of storytelling that confronts the hardships and horrors of our sociopolitical landscapes with gloriously tender prose and heartfelt examination. Casting her gaze upon the struggles of the immigrant experience, grief, and the language with which we grapple with such realities comes Afterlife, a deceptively small novel with a big heart. And what a moving marvel it is. With an extraordinary talent for balancing a packed plot and meaningful introspection through succinctly poetic artistic queries, Alvarez tells the story of Antonia, a retired English professor who ‘is finding it increasingly difficult to keep up her faith in people, in herself,’ while reeling from the death of her husband. While concerned with the mental health of her sister and struggling to find the language of her grief, she finds ‘a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep,’ and so begins a tale of attempting to rise to the challenge of social responsibility while making space for your own healing. Assessing how literature and language can be footholds in the Herculean climb of our trauma while also bearing in mind the barriers of cross-cultural language, Afterlife is a profound tale that, while perhaps overly tidy, spotlights the possible roles of the individual in the face of systemic injustice.
‘And what about those who cannot bear up under deprivations, Who are traumatized and silenced by hard times? If she ever gets back to writing, Antonio wants the stories she tells— to come from that deeper, hurting place. Perhaps grief will be good for her work?’
I found it funny that, after a full year of this book being faced out at the bookstore I worked at, it wasn’t until I was nearly finished reading it that I realized the cover features a face on it. Look at the branches, they form a face. How did I not notice that? Also, great cover. Anyways, onto the review.
When the husband of Mexican-born former professor Antonia dies on his way to meet her at a restaurant, her whole world seems to collapse around her. We see how the titular afterlife is more than just the question of where her husband has gone, but also the life of those left behind in the wake of a spouse’s death as Antonia struggles to find any sense of self to carry into the future. She finds herself ‘wordless’ in this aftermath and Alvarez examines how our sense of self can often be informed by the language we employ to assess it. Without words, she has no self, though examining the literature of grief and love—pulling from a wealth of sources, primarily poets, such as her insights into lines of Rumi—becomes an avenue in which to learn the language to process her grief.
Alvarez shows writing, or at least sharing our stories, as a way in which we can look at our struggles in a therapeutic way. For ourselves and for others. There is a rather metafictional element at work here with Antonia’s work being not unlike the novel the reader holds in their hand:
I was reminded of the old maxim to “write what you know” and Antonia’s work becomes increasingly shaped by the world around her. It is also an interesting insight into how the life of an individual spills out into the larger social stratum, informed and informing upon the larger events of society and those we encounter.
‘If I try to be like you, who will be like me?’
While personal identity in conjunction with those around us is often central to Alvarez’s work, Afterlife does an excellent job of looking at aspects of family—particularly sisterhood—and the way personal battles interact with shared struggles. Alvarez crafts a lively set of sisters who must come together in the wake of the eldest sister—Izzy—going missing. Her mental health is in question while Antonia is struggling with her own and makes for a rather searing portrait of the ways we must juggle personal issues amidst family drama. Alvarez herself manages to gracefully carry all the threads of this novel and set them forth on a rather fast-paced and multifaceted plot, creating characters you swear could walk right off the page into the world despite them all having very little space in the short novel.
Yet there is another plot thread woven in as well when Antonia befriends the undocumented immigrants working on the nearby farm, particularly the pregnant woman who has been turned out by her boyfriend. This is where Alvarez really shines by incorporating the political into the personal and looking at the struggles of immigrant workers in a country hostile to their existence. Language once again takes center stage as language barriers are present and Alvarez affixed a looming dread and political commentary as the local sheriff continuously pokes his nose into their business.
‘Could that possibly be what the aftermath amounts to: an eternity of remembering‘s?’
Despite the falliabilites of language, Alvazer shows how the stories we share are not just a comfort but can also be a form of activism. Not unlike the book itself. It all comes rather racing towards a conclusion that knots itself up perhaps too tidily, yet it still delivers a rather eloquent and emotionally powerful punch. Alvarez also does a wonderful job of giving each plot thread it’s due and a satisfactory conclusion, at all times emphasizing the dilemmas of the individual to weight moral responsibility to the world around them with their own internal struggles.
‘She has continued to think a lot about the afterlife, especially in the absence of any sign from Sam. What, if anything, does it mean? An afterlife? All she has come up with is that the only way not to let the people she loves die forever is to embody what she loved about them. Otherwise the world is indeed depleted.’
Empowering and emotional, Julia Alvarez has crafted a brilliant story in Afterlife. Despite its short space, this novel contains multitudes and threads them all with tenderness and grace. I particularly love the focus on language and literature as a route towards recovery and understanding the sociopolitical realities that drive the world around us. Brief yet beautiful, Afterlife is a success.
4/5
‘And what about those who cannot bear up under deprivations, Who are traumatized and silenced by hard times? If she ever gets back to writing, Antonio wants the stories she tells— to come from that deeper, hurting place. Perhaps grief will be good for her work?’
I found it funny that, after a full year of this book being faced out at the bookstore I worked at, it wasn’t until I was nearly finished reading it that I realized the cover features a face on it. Look at the branches, they form a face. How did I not notice that? Also, great cover. Anyways, onto the review.
When the husband of Mexican-born former professor Antonia dies on his way to meet her at a restaurant, her whole world seems to collapse around her. We see how the titular afterlife is more than just the question of where her husband has gone, but also the life of those left behind in the wake of a spouse’s death as Antonia struggles to find any sense of self to carry into the future. She finds herself ‘wordless’ in this aftermath and Alvarez examines how our sense of self can often be informed by the language we employ to assess it. Without words, she has no self, though examining the literature of grief and love—pulling from a wealth of sources, primarily poets, such as her insights into lines of Rumi—becomes an avenue in which to learn the language to process her grief.
Alvarez shows writing, or at least sharing our stories, as a way in which we can look at our struggles in a therapeutic way. For ourselves and for others. There is a rather metafictional element at work here with Antonia’s work being not unlike the novel the reader holds in their hand:
‘Short chapters about the people who keep our world going? Invisible people we don’t even know about?’
I was reminded of the old maxim to “write what you know” and Antonia’s work becomes increasingly shaped by the world around her. It is also an interesting insight into how the life of an individual spills out into the larger social stratum, informed and informing upon the larger events of society and those we encounter.
‘If I try to be like you, who will be like me?’
While personal identity in conjunction with those around us is often central to Alvarez’s work, Afterlife does an excellent job of looking at aspects of family—particularly sisterhood—and the way personal battles interact with shared struggles. Alvarez crafts a lively set of sisters who must come together in the wake of the eldest sister—Izzy—going missing. Her mental health is in question while Antonia is struggling with her own and makes for a rather searing portrait of the ways we must juggle personal issues amidst family drama. Alvarez herself manages to gracefully carry all the threads of this novel and set them forth on a rather fast-paced and multifaceted plot, creating characters you swear could walk right off the page into the world despite them all having very little space in the short novel.
Yet there is another plot thread woven in as well when Antonia befriends the undocumented immigrants working on the nearby farm, particularly the pregnant woman who has been turned out by her boyfriend. This is where Alvarez really shines by incorporating the political into the personal and looking at the struggles of immigrant workers in a country hostile to their existence. Language once again takes center stage as language barriers are present and Alvarez affixed a looming dread and political commentary as the local sheriff continuously pokes his nose into their business.
‘Could that possibly be what the aftermath amounts to: an eternity of remembering‘s?’
Despite the falliabilites of language, Alvazer shows how the stories we share are not just a comfort but can also be a form of activism. Not unlike the book itself. It all comes rather racing towards a conclusion that knots itself up perhaps too tidily, yet it still delivers a rather eloquent and emotionally powerful punch. Alvarez also does a wonderful job of giving each plot thread it’s due and a satisfactory conclusion, at all times emphasizing the dilemmas of the individual to weight moral responsibility to the world around them with their own internal struggles.
‘She has continued to think a lot about the afterlife, especially in the absence of any sign from Sam. What, if anything, does it mean? An afterlife? All she has come up with is that the only way not to let the people she loves die forever is to embody what she loved about them. Otherwise the world is indeed depleted.’
Empowering and emotional, Julia Alvarez has crafted a brilliant story in Afterlife. Despite its short space, this novel contains multitudes and threads them all with tenderness and grace. I particularly love the focus on language and literature as a route towards recovery and understanding the sociopolitical realities that drive the world around us. Brief yet beautiful, Afterlife is a success.
4/5
June 1, 2020
In Afterlife Antonia Vega’s world changes when her husband Sam dies suddenly, just as she retires from her teaching position as an English professor in rural Vermont. As Antonia attempts to deal with her grief, two of her sisters, Tilly and Mona, reach out for her assistance with coaxing their other sister, Izzy, into seeking help for her erratic and unstable behavior — An increasing worry among the sisters.
Antonia’s neighbor, Roger, employs immigrants to work on his farm, one of whom reaches out to Antonia for help with coordinating his girlfriend’s arrival from Mexico. Estela shows up, pregnant, and is turned away by her boyfriend, Mario, unhappy to see she is having a baby, which cannot be his.
With these coinciding situations, Antonia searches for balance, trying to navigate life without her husband and reflecting on questions from a Tolstoy story she taught: Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?
Afterlife is my first Julia Alvarez book and I really liked it. The topics are real and I enjoyed the style used throughout this well-written story.
Antonia’s neighbor, Roger, employs immigrants to work on his farm, one of whom reaches out to Antonia for help with coordinating his girlfriend’s arrival from Mexico. Estela shows up, pregnant, and is turned away by her boyfriend, Mario, unhappy to see she is having a baby, which cannot be his.
With these coinciding situations, Antonia searches for balance, trying to navigate life without her husband and reflecting on questions from a Tolstoy story she taught: Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?
Afterlife is my first Julia Alvarez book and I really liked it. The topics are real and I enjoyed the style used throughout this well-written story.
April 12, 2020
I love love love this author and her tender stories. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Antonia Vega is an immigrant writer and recent retiree who loses her husband suddenly. As life often is, more stressful events pile on, and Antonia is more lost than ever. She often turns to books and writing for comfort, but even those aren’t helping her now.
Afterlife is a tiny book full of heart and meaning. Antonia is searching for herself amongst her grief, and she’s also seeking to honor her beloved who typically would be there to support her in times like this.
Afterlife is a book about grief, sisters (Alvarez consistently pens this relationship with poignance), and immigration. It’s an every day story with characters who could be your neighbor. The writing is brilliant, and the messages like a warm hug. I am thankful for another gift from Julia Alvarez in the form of this beautiful story.
I received a gifted copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
Antonia Vega is an immigrant writer and recent retiree who loses her husband suddenly. As life often is, more stressful events pile on, and Antonia is more lost than ever. She often turns to books and writing for comfort, but even those aren’t helping her now.
Afterlife is a tiny book full of heart and meaning. Antonia is searching for herself amongst her grief, and she’s also seeking to honor her beloved who typically would be there to support her in times like this.
Afterlife is a book about grief, sisters (Alvarez consistently pens this relationship with poignance), and immigration. It’s an every day story with characters who could be your neighbor. The writing is brilliant, and the messages like a warm hug. I am thankful for another gift from Julia Alvarez in the form of this beautiful story.
I received a gifted copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
April 12, 2020
The main character in this book is Antonia (Vega) Sawyer, one of four sisters who hailed from the Dominican Republic. She is now in the senior years of her life, having retired just the year before as a teacher. She is trying to grasp her relatively new reality of both being retired and becoming a widow almost virtually at the same time. You see, her husband Sam died while in transit to take Antonia to her celebratory retirement dinner last year. He was a physician, well known for being very kind, and passionate about helping people.
As Antonia navigates her new solitary life, she often "hears" her husband's voice telling her what he would think or do in certain situations, and this can often influence how she will decide to handle them. It's a learning curve how this "afterlife" flows around and through us.
There are two areas of conflict weaving throughout this story. One involves Mexican illegal aliens who are seeking help from Antonia. She is well versed in shepherding resources in the area due to her late husband's interest in this plight, but is uncertain how far she should stick her neck out. Still, she has internalized her husband's voice and spirit which plays into her decision making.
The other area of concern is with her sister Felicia Isabel Vega aka "Izzy". They've almost felt like twins throughout life because they were born less than a year apart, and they are the oldest. However, Izzy is wont to be flamboyant and impetuous, and her sisters have always feared she has bipolar disorder. They have been trying an intervention for years to get Izzy professional help to no avail, but things are hitting a crisis point...and just when the sisters are trying to get together to celebrate Antonia's 66th birthday.
The writing was good, but I disliked the passages that were somewhat poetic-and frankly went a bit over my head. It was like word salad...and I wasn't going to stop and do the work to analyze its higher meaning. When I read I like it to be a pleasant, restful exercise and for it to flow effortlessly; nice and easy. I also wasn't that drawn into the sister interaction track of the story. Antonia's character was much more intriguing when she was acting on her own rather than intertwined among her three other sisters.
Thank you to Algonquin Books who provided an advance reader copy via Edelweiss.
As Antonia navigates her new solitary life, she often "hears" her husband's voice telling her what he would think or do in certain situations, and this can often influence how she will decide to handle them. It's a learning curve how this "afterlife" flows around and through us.
There are two areas of conflict weaving throughout this story. One involves Mexican illegal aliens who are seeking help from Antonia. She is well versed in shepherding resources in the area due to her late husband's interest in this plight, but is uncertain how far she should stick her neck out. Still, she has internalized her husband's voice and spirit which plays into her decision making.
The other area of concern is with her sister Felicia Isabel Vega aka "Izzy". They've almost felt like twins throughout life because they were born less than a year apart, and they are the oldest. However, Izzy is wont to be flamboyant and impetuous, and her sisters have always feared she has bipolar disorder. They have been trying an intervention for years to get Izzy professional help to no avail, but things are hitting a crisis point...and just when the sisters are trying to get together to celebrate Antonia's 66th birthday.
The writing was good, but I disliked the passages that were somewhat poetic-and frankly went a bit over my head. It was like word salad...and I wasn't going to stop and do the work to analyze its higher meaning. When I read I like it to be a pleasant, restful exercise and for it to flow effortlessly; nice and easy. I also wasn't that drawn into the sister interaction track of the story. Antonia's character was much more intriguing when she was acting on her own rather than intertwined among her three other sisters.
Thank you to Algonquin Books who provided an advance reader copy via Edelweiss.
November 30, 2020
After suffering the shocking loss of her husband Sam on the day she was retiring, Antonia, almost a year later, is still searching for internal answers to what is waiting in the afterlife or is this the afterlife?
So much of who Sam was, is very much in her thoughts and reactions to what is happening currently. An illegal girl, pregnant, has found a place resistingly in her heart; her sister, Izzy, on her way to celebrate antonia’s bday, is now missing. So much of who she is and how she will be defined after her husband’s death surrounds her.
Alvarez has embedded these themes that are relevant to us now- immigration, mental illness, reconciliation of loss.
4⭐️
So much of who Sam was, is very much in her thoughts and reactions to what is happening currently. An illegal girl, pregnant, has found a place resistingly in her heart; her sister, Izzy, on her way to celebrate antonia’s bday, is now missing. So much of who she is and how she will be defined after her husband’s death surrounds her.
Alvarez has embedded these themes that are relevant to us now- immigration, mental illness, reconciliation of loss.
4⭐️
April 13, 2020
A small book with a big heart and deep insights. I found this story to be a journey of self reflection and keen observations which grappled with big questions...what do we owe ourselves and others? And what is the right thing to do?
How much power does Antonia really have? She has lost her husband; her sister is missing. And behind those untimely losses, the timely ones, the whole flank of buffering elders, parents, tias, tios, who have died in the natural progression of things, but still, natural or not, they leave behind holes in the heart, places of leakage where Antonia feels the depletion of spirit, the slow bleed of chronic grieving.
The writing is wonderfully descriptive and, as with her other books, it is the strongest and most incisive when it explores the bonds of sisters, the push and pull of family, and where I found it to be the most immersive. Perhaps because I’m also Hispanic and a sister, I found many of the scenes relatable and perfectly, sometimes humorously, rendered.
Her sisters are doing what they always do when they depart a scene, parsing the meat off its bones, analyzing, judging, exclaiming over the different personalities, a kind of sisterhood digestive system.
But it wasn’t that she didn’t feel as much as they did, but that she doled it out in limited portion. Of course, any such divergence from the culture of the sisterhood was considered a betrayal.
This is a complex and moving story of love and loss which is ultimately life affirming. It is also an elegy to how we move through and grow from grief and emerge stronger from the broken bits. I loved the writing, though not as enamored when it veered into the political, but overall I was completely engulfed in its portrayal of a woman struggling with what comes next. Highly recommended.
I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway and what a gift it was!
How much power does Antonia really have? She has lost her husband; her sister is missing. And behind those untimely losses, the timely ones, the whole flank of buffering elders, parents, tias, tios, who have died in the natural progression of things, but still, natural or not, they leave behind holes in the heart, places of leakage where Antonia feels the depletion of spirit, the slow bleed of chronic grieving.
The writing is wonderfully descriptive and, as with her other books, it is the strongest and most incisive when it explores the bonds of sisters, the push and pull of family, and where I found it to be the most immersive. Perhaps because I’m also Hispanic and a sister, I found many of the scenes relatable and perfectly, sometimes humorously, rendered.
Her sisters are doing what they always do when they depart a scene, parsing the meat off its bones, analyzing, judging, exclaiming over the different personalities, a kind of sisterhood digestive system.
But it wasn’t that she didn’t feel as much as they did, but that she doled it out in limited portion. Of course, any such divergence from the culture of the sisterhood was considered a betrayal.
This is a complex and moving story of love and loss which is ultimately life affirming. It is also an elegy to how we move through and grow from grief and emerge stronger from the broken bits. I loved the writing, though not as enamored when it veered into the political, but overall I was completely engulfed in its portrayal of a woman struggling with what comes next. Highly recommended.
I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway and what a gift it was!
December 3, 2021
Afterlife might be short but it packs a punch. Antonia is a retired English professor whose husband has just died. Without meaning to, she gets involved with an undocumented pregnant girl. At the same time, she and her sisters are struggling with her older sister’s mental health issues.
I just really identified with Antonia. Not because of similar ethnicity, but because she is enthralled by books and views her life through the prism of all she’s read.
This book asks the big questions. What do we owe to others? What does it mean to act on our ethics, not just talk a good game? How do we or should we rank our priorities? The comments about grief totally hit home.
This is my first book written by Alvarez. Her writing is beautiful, capturing the essence of each moment and thought. It’s a thoughtful novel, as opposed to a suspenseful one. But I could feel Antonia’s stress trying to determine which decision to make every step of the way.
Alma Cuervo did a lovely job as the narrator.
I just really identified with Antonia. Not because of similar ethnicity, but because she is enthralled by books and views her life through the prism of all she’s read.
This book asks the big questions. What do we owe to others? What does it mean to act on our ethics, not just talk a good game? How do we or should we rank our priorities? The comments about grief totally hit home.
This is my first book written by Alvarez. Her writing is beautiful, capturing the essence of each moment and thought. It’s a thoughtful novel, as opposed to a suspenseful one. But I could feel Antonia’s stress trying to determine which decision to make every step of the way.
Alma Cuervo did a lovely job as the narrator.
September 20, 2021
"Sometimes it's okay if the only thing you did today was breathe." (Yumi Sakugawa)
Julia Alvarez wraps us up in the swaddling comfort of refocusing, redirecting, and releasing the weight of life's uncontrollable circumstances. Day by day, and especially as we find ourselves in the grip of a monumental hand-off of a pandemic, not a soul on Earth can feel and react to tragedies and uncertainties in exactly the same way. It is all personal. It is all played from the internal notes of music that only you can hear.
Antonia Vega is searching for an elusive identity. She loved the fit and the timbre of her old life. Antonia knew its familiarity with its everyday actions and reactions. Being a widow after the recent death of her physician husband, Sam, leaves her hollow inside. Her daily routine of being an English professor has come to an end through retirement. The ebb and flow no longer lingers in her bones.
But all of that is about to change for Antonia through the simple act of leaves in her gutter. Perhaps there was more significance in a handful of leaves......blocking the flow of what is yet to come.
Antonia's neighbor sends over one of his farm hands, Mario, with ladder in hand to clean her gutters. Antonia listens intently as Mario tells her of his girlfriend, Estela, who will be arriving by bus from Colorado. He asks for some assistance from Antonia to get her safely here in Vermont. Antonia takes a step forward into something that she never bargained for. But dabbling in the needs of humanity may just open a section of her heart that's been closed for business.
They say that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot. Antonia will tell you otherwise. She's received a call that one of her sisters is missing. Izzy was the one who had lapses in the straight and narrow and was off her meds more than she was on. She took to the road while hauling a trailer behind her. No one knows her whereabouts.
Julia Alvarez does a remarkable job of creating characters who reflect the pains and the triumphs of life. She seems to have a finger on the pulse of friendship, sisterhood, family ties, grief, and most of all the constant quest to love and to be loved. Afterlife is filled with human responses to the unexpected through unleashed emotions and even bits of humor. It's a quick read, but one to savor in the hands of the talented Julia Alvarez.
I received a copy of Afterlife through Goodreads Giveaways. My thanks to Algonquin Books and to Julia Alvarez for the opportunity.
Julia Alvarez wraps us up in the swaddling comfort of refocusing, redirecting, and releasing the weight of life's uncontrollable circumstances. Day by day, and especially as we find ourselves in the grip of a monumental hand-off of a pandemic, not a soul on Earth can feel and react to tragedies and uncertainties in exactly the same way. It is all personal. It is all played from the internal notes of music that only you can hear.
Antonia Vega is searching for an elusive identity. She loved the fit and the timbre of her old life. Antonia knew its familiarity with its everyday actions and reactions. Being a widow after the recent death of her physician husband, Sam, leaves her hollow inside. Her daily routine of being an English professor has come to an end through retirement. The ebb and flow no longer lingers in her bones.
But all of that is about to change for Antonia through the simple act of leaves in her gutter. Perhaps there was more significance in a handful of leaves......blocking the flow of what is yet to come.
Antonia's neighbor sends over one of his farm hands, Mario, with ladder in hand to clean her gutters. Antonia listens intently as Mario tells her of his girlfriend, Estela, who will be arriving by bus from Colorado. He asks for some assistance from Antonia to get her safely here in Vermont. Antonia takes a step forward into something that she never bargained for. But dabbling in the needs of humanity may just open a section of her heart that's been closed for business.
They say that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot. Antonia will tell you otherwise. She's received a call that one of her sisters is missing. Izzy was the one who had lapses in the straight and narrow and was off her meds more than she was on. She took to the road while hauling a trailer behind her. No one knows her whereabouts.
Julia Alvarez does a remarkable job of creating characters who reflect the pains and the triumphs of life. She seems to have a finger on the pulse of friendship, sisterhood, family ties, grief, and most of all the constant quest to love and to be loved. Afterlife is filled with human responses to the unexpected through unleashed emotions and even bits of humor. It's a quick read, but one to savor in the hands of the talented Julia Alvarez.
I received a copy of Afterlife through Goodreads Giveaways. My thanks to Algonquin Books and to Julia Alvarez for the opportunity.
August 5, 2020
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent and it’s sequel Yo! are among my all-time favorite books. I reread them both in less than a day when I am in need of a laugh. I have read almost everything that Julia Alvarez has wrote for an adult audience, chuckling out loud when reading her nonfiction Once Upon a Quinceañera and Something to Declare. When I found out that at long last Alvarez had written a new adult fiction book, a smile came to my face. Alvarez has spent the 21st century gearing her craft toward young adult and middle grade readers. Tia Lola is a well honed character, but she is not Yolanda Garcia, the autobiographical protagonist that I have revisited so many times over the years when my mood is in need of a pick me up. I had been first on my library’s list to read Afterlife when the world shut down. After fifteen years, what’s a few more months of waiting? Now that I finally had Afterlife with its yellow cover speckled with leaves and twigs in my hands, I knew that it was time to reintroduce myself to Alvarez’ writing.
Antonia Vega is newly retired and widowed, meeting both of life’s milestones on the same day. Having taught for over thirty years at the same Vermont college, Antonia pulls out a lifetime of authors and quotations to place meaning on the synchronization of these moments. Sprinkled throughout the text are quotes by everyone from Tolstoy to Kingsolver with a myriad of authors in between. Even though Antonia has lived in the same Burlington community for decades, she has been rooted to her job, her students, having no children of her own and playing the bad cop to her husband’s good cop. Now, Sam is gone, and her role nurturing generations of students young enough to be her grandchildren along with him. During each pause in her day, Antonia longs to communicate with Sam, believing that he is speaking to her, or, perhaps, part of her, during his afterlife. After a lifetime of marriage, perhaps this is just Antonia’s inner conscience guiding her through life so that she does not succumb to a world of grief. Without any children of her all Antonia has left are her quotations and haikus, and her sisters.
Readers find out that Antonia is one of four sisters, each born eleven months apart. Their parents had recently passed away, both from Alzheimer’s, in the last few years, leaving Izzy, Antonia, Tilly, and Mona as the senior generation in their family. The Vega family had immigrated from the Dominican Republic when the sisters were girls, and even after most of a lifetime in the States, the Vega sisters cling to their Latina heritage. When the sisters are having an intimate conversation, Alvarez writes in long, run on sentences that never seem to cease. This is Latina culture at its best, and, even though Dominicans have been part of the melting pot of the United States for decades, gringos still have not caught on to what makes them unique. In this regard, after years away from writing adult fiction, Alvarez desired to write the story of her family in real time. What happened to the Garcia girls after living away from the Dominican Republic for a lifetime? The Vega sisters in Afterlife are essentially the Garcia sisters who are the Alvarez sisters as Alvarez blurs the line between fact and fiction, giving her readers a follow up story after all these years for posterity. Antonia Vega is who Yolanda Garcia has become in her senior years, and, other than her present grief, has seemed to have lead an enriching life.
Having never having children and living in a rural Vermont community, Antonia is dubbed the most Americanized of her sisters. Perhaps it is because she married a gringo or maybe it is because in a community devoid of ethnicities, she has been the token Hispanic for years. One can tell that Alvarez has crafted Antonia’s story for years because this is her story. When a neighbor’s undocumented Mexican worker pleads with Antonia to assist her in bringing his girlfriend to Vermont, she is torn. It is in the nature of Antonia’s character after being married to Sam for so long to help everyone. Her sisters tell her to think of herself first and Antonia tries to, but, when Estela arrives alone almost pregnant to term, Antonia feels an obligation out of feminine and Latina solidarity to help her. No longer the shepherdess of students, Antonia needed another soul to guide through the world albeit temporarily. Estela was not going to be a crutch, and the scenes where Antonia begins to teach her English while also purchasing the Hispanic cable package and buying empanadas are heartfelt. I cannot help but think of her description of the padrinos of Latino culture in Quinceañera as they guide the younger generation toward adulthood, enabling them to achieve the American dream that propelled their parents to immigrate.
While reading countless books on immigration over the years and hoping that the protagonists do well in their new country, I often wonder how living a life as Americans affects their culture. In Afterlife, Julia Alvarez provides me with a poignant answer. After a lifetime of teaching and writing fiction and poetry, Julia Alvarez is still the same humorous, Dominican writer of strung out run on sentences who is not afraid to be blunt to her fictional sisters and to her readers. I did not laugh as I did during Garcia Girls and Yo! because Alvarez has reached a new stage of life and is now a padrina who can dispense a lifetime of knowledge to younger generations. I thought at times that this new chapter to the Garcia Girls’ story felt forced as though Alvarez felt obligated after all these years to continue where she left off. I know in the twilight of her life where Antonia/Yolanda/Julia is emotionally and politically. Not original, Afterlife is a fitting swan song to a career as an immigration- centric writer. I hope that Alvarez still has some funny stories left to tell, but if she does not, Afterlife was worth the wait.
4 🇩🇴 stars
Antonia Vega is newly retired and widowed, meeting both of life’s milestones on the same day. Having taught for over thirty years at the same Vermont college, Antonia pulls out a lifetime of authors and quotations to place meaning on the synchronization of these moments. Sprinkled throughout the text are quotes by everyone from Tolstoy to Kingsolver with a myriad of authors in between. Even though Antonia has lived in the same Burlington community for decades, she has been rooted to her job, her students, having no children of her own and playing the bad cop to her husband’s good cop. Now, Sam is gone, and her role nurturing generations of students young enough to be her grandchildren along with him. During each pause in her day, Antonia longs to communicate with Sam, believing that he is speaking to her, or, perhaps, part of her, during his afterlife. After a lifetime of marriage, perhaps this is just Antonia’s inner conscience guiding her through life so that she does not succumb to a world of grief. Without any children of her all Antonia has left are her quotations and haikus, and her sisters.
Readers find out that Antonia is one of four sisters, each born eleven months apart. Their parents had recently passed away, both from Alzheimer’s, in the last few years, leaving Izzy, Antonia, Tilly, and Mona as the senior generation in their family. The Vega family had immigrated from the Dominican Republic when the sisters were girls, and even after most of a lifetime in the States, the Vega sisters cling to their Latina heritage. When the sisters are having an intimate conversation, Alvarez writes in long, run on sentences that never seem to cease. This is Latina culture at its best, and, even though Dominicans have been part of the melting pot of the United States for decades, gringos still have not caught on to what makes them unique. In this regard, after years away from writing adult fiction, Alvarez desired to write the story of her family in real time. What happened to the Garcia girls after living away from the Dominican Republic for a lifetime? The Vega sisters in Afterlife are essentially the Garcia sisters who are the Alvarez sisters as Alvarez blurs the line between fact and fiction, giving her readers a follow up story after all these years for posterity. Antonia Vega is who Yolanda Garcia has become in her senior years, and, other than her present grief, has seemed to have lead an enriching life.
Having never having children and living in a rural Vermont community, Antonia is dubbed the most Americanized of her sisters. Perhaps it is because she married a gringo or maybe it is because in a community devoid of ethnicities, she has been the token Hispanic for years. One can tell that Alvarez has crafted Antonia’s story for years because this is her story. When a neighbor’s undocumented Mexican worker pleads with Antonia to assist her in bringing his girlfriend to Vermont, she is torn. It is in the nature of Antonia’s character after being married to Sam for so long to help everyone. Her sisters tell her to think of herself first and Antonia tries to, but, when Estela arrives alone almost pregnant to term, Antonia feels an obligation out of feminine and Latina solidarity to help her. No longer the shepherdess of students, Antonia needed another soul to guide through the world albeit temporarily. Estela was not going to be a crutch, and the scenes where Antonia begins to teach her English while also purchasing the Hispanic cable package and buying empanadas are heartfelt. I cannot help but think of her description of the padrinos of Latino culture in Quinceañera as they guide the younger generation toward adulthood, enabling them to achieve the American dream that propelled their parents to immigrate.
While reading countless books on immigration over the years and hoping that the protagonists do well in their new country, I often wonder how living a life as Americans affects their culture. In Afterlife, Julia Alvarez provides me with a poignant answer. After a lifetime of teaching and writing fiction and poetry, Julia Alvarez is still the same humorous, Dominican writer of strung out run on sentences who is not afraid to be blunt to her fictional sisters and to her readers. I did not laugh as I did during Garcia Girls and Yo! because Alvarez has reached a new stage of life and is now a padrina who can dispense a lifetime of knowledge to younger generations. I thought at times that this new chapter to the Garcia Girls’ story felt forced as though Alvarez felt obligated after all these years to continue where she left off. I know in the twilight of her life where Antonia/Yolanda/Julia is emotionally and politically. Not original, Afterlife is a fitting swan song to a career as an immigration- centric writer. I hope that Alvarez still has some funny stories left to tell, but if she does not, Afterlife was worth the wait.
4 🇩🇴 stars
July 11, 2020
Afterlife is the latest novel by author Julia Alvarez, a favorite writer of mine for many years. This is a beautiful book about not only loss, but loyalty and love and friendship and family. Most importantly, this is a story of how we can come to grips with loss and all of its consequences in one's life, and manage to go on. The Prologue in this unforgettable novel is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking pieces of prose/poetry that I have read, as Antonia repeatedly asks, "Can you please help me find him?" We witness the fragmentation of Antonia's life as she comes undone as she desperately tries to put all of the pieces together once more.
And that is the beginning of this beautiful novel by Julia Alvarez, her first book for adults in almost fifteen years, and as she says, her first writing as an "elder." The protagonist, Antonia, is a writer and professor at the university, having just retired. She is to meet her husband for dinner to celebrate. He is late, and at first she is irritated, then it quickly escalates to panic, as she learns that he has died. With that news, Antonia begins a life without Sam. What transpires in this book is one's attempt to pick up the pieces and go on, and then we have the "sisterhood" who have dedicated themselves to help Antonia make it through this difficult time. Antonia's three sisters become an integral component of this tale, as well as several undocumented Mexicans that Antonia has befriended and become increasingly close to. It is a beautiful book that I will most certainly read again.
"An afterlife? All she has come up with is that the only way not to let the people she loves die forever is to embody what she loved about them. Otherwise the world is indeed depleted."
And that is the beginning of this beautiful novel by Julia Alvarez, her first book for adults in almost fifteen years, and as she says, her first writing as an "elder." The protagonist, Antonia, is a writer and professor at the university, having just retired. She is to meet her husband for dinner to celebrate. He is late, and at first she is irritated, then it quickly escalates to panic, as she learns that he has died. With that news, Antonia begins a life without Sam. What transpires in this book is one's attempt to pick up the pieces and go on, and then we have the "sisterhood" who have dedicated themselves to help Antonia make it through this difficult time. Antonia's three sisters become an integral component of this tale, as well as several undocumented Mexicans that Antonia has befriended and become increasingly close to. It is a beautiful book that I will most certainly read again.
"An afterlife? All she has come up with is that the only way not to let the people she loves die forever is to embody what she loved about them. Otherwise the world is indeed depleted."
April 10, 2020
A story that revolves around family, the bond of sisters, and the pain of loss, along with the stories, and struggles of those who have immigrated to America – both legally and illegally, as well as those people who seem to view ‘real’ Americans as an exclusive club. Love and loss both factor heavily in this story.
Born in the Dominican Republic, Antoinette and her sisters emigrated when they were very young, but many years have passed, and Antoinette, recently retired and widowed, will soon observe her 66th birthday.
’We all have to make peace with that longing, learn to live with the holes in our hearts.’
Among those seeking Antoinette’s help in this story is Mario, a young, undocumented Hispanic man who works at a dairy farm nearby. He is trying to get Estela, his girlfriend, from Colorado to Vermont, where they live, but the coyotes are refusing to release her, and so he turns to Antonia for help.
And if that were not adding enough stress to her life, she also has to juggle a get-together with her three sisters to celebrate her birthday, which adds some laughs, but along with that is even more stress.
Families, the bonds that tie us together can sometimes feel limiting, can make some feel less-than, their feelings dismissed as if the person and their feelings are irrelevant. Families are front and center of this story, the families we are born into, as well as the families we create, whether through marriage, adoptions, or simply the act of caring and sharing.
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Algonquin First Reader’s Club
Born in the Dominican Republic, Antoinette and her sisters emigrated when they were very young, but many years have passed, and Antoinette, recently retired and widowed, will soon observe her 66th birthday.
’We all have to make peace with that longing, learn to live with the holes in our hearts.’
Among those seeking Antoinette’s help in this story is Mario, a young, undocumented Hispanic man who works at a dairy farm nearby. He is trying to get Estela, his girlfriend, from Colorado to Vermont, where they live, but the coyotes are refusing to release her, and so he turns to Antonia for help.
And if that were not adding enough stress to her life, she also has to juggle a get-together with her three sisters to celebrate her birthday, which adds some laughs, but along with that is even more stress.
Families, the bonds that tie us together can sometimes feel limiting, can make some feel less-than, their feelings dismissed as if the person and their feelings are irrelevant. Families are front and center of this story, the families we are born into, as well as the families we create, whether through marriage, adoptions, or simply the act of caring and sharing.
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Algonquin First Reader’s Club
April 23, 2020
A high 4 stars!
Afterlife is a beautifully written novel about grief and how life carries on. Antonia is recently widowed, living by herself in a small town in Vermont. She has three sisters, who live in other parts of the USA. Antonia's instinct is to retreat into her grief, but the outside world intrudes. Her oldest sister, Izzie, who is erratic and impulsive, disappears. At the same time, Antonia finds herself charged with the well-being of a pregnant underage illegal Mexican immigrant. Alvarez does a great job of portraying Antonia's inner voice and turmoil -- Antonia struggles between wanting to isolate herself and feeling a sense to duty to her sisters and to the plight of her young charge. This is not a long novel. The beginning and end are very strong, but it felt a bit slack in the middle, which is why I couldn't bring myself to give it 5 stars. Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
Afterlife is a beautifully written novel about grief and how life carries on. Antonia is recently widowed, living by herself in a small town in Vermont. She has three sisters, who live in other parts of the USA. Antonia's instinct is to retreat into her grief, but the outside world intrudes. Her oldest sister, Izzie, who is erratic and impulsive, disappears. At the same time, Antonia finds herself charged with the well-being of a pregnant underage illegal Mexican immigrant. Alvarez does a great job of portraying Antonia's inner voice and turmoil -- Antonia struggles between wanting to isolate herself and feeling a sense to duty to her sisters and to the plight of her young charge. This is not a long novel. The beginning and end are very strong, but it felt a bit slack in the middle, which is why I couldn't bring myself to give it 5 stars. Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
August 27, 2021
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Afterlife is a slim novel that covers many topical and important issues, like mental health, in a not always satisfactory way. Alvarez's style was at times a detriment to her story. While I could have moved past the lack of quotations, I had a harder time buying into the recursive narration. I sort of understood what Alvarez was going for, trying to render Antonia Vega's inner monologue in what seemed to be a slightly less sporadic take on stream-of-consciousness, but I can't say that it worked (for me). Antonia's observations, reflections, and various thoughts often seemed far too contrived. For one, she was perpetually baffled: each interaction she has with another person has her wondering why certain customs exists, why society expects us to behave a certain way or why we adhere to certain etiquettes. At times it seemed that she had lived under a rock for the entirety of her life, when in actuality she was a teacher and therefore must have accumulated some life experiences.
While I appreciated that she wasn't portrayed as inherently selfless, I wish we could have seen her in a more positive light. Her relationship with her sisters and husband seemed to reinforce this image of her interacting with them not because she wanted to or because she cared for them but because it was expected of her. Her two younger sisters merged into one blurry character, while her older sister's personality was entirely reduced to the being the 'problematic' one. Alvarez presents us with a rather simplistic take of mental disorders and the sister who is possibly bipolar was a mere plot device that would enable Antonia to embark on her 'new life'.
The book does pose some thought-provoking questions, especially regarding what people owe to each themselves and each other, but stylistically it just wasn't for me. I hope other readers will be able to connected with Alvarez's story and her characters more than I was.
Afterlife is a slim novel that covers many topical and important issues, like mental health, in a not always satisfactory way. Alvarez's style was at times a detriment to her story. While I could have moved past the lack of quotations, I had a harder time buying into the recursive narration. I sort of understood what Alvarez was going for, trying to render Antonia Vega's inner monologue in what seemed to be a slightly less sporadic take on stream-of-consciousness, but I can't say that it worked (for me). Antonia's observations, reflections, and various thoughts often seemed far too contrived. For one, she was perpetually baffled: each interaction she has with another person has her wondering why certain customs exists, why society expects us to behave a certain way or why we adhere to certain etiquettes. At times it seemed that she had lived under a rock for the entirety of her life, when in actuality she was a teacher and therefore must have accumulated some life experiences.
While I appreciated that she wasn't portrayed as inherently selfless, I wish we could have seen her in a more positive light. Her relationship with her sisters and husband seemed to reinforce this image of her interacting with them not because she wanted to or because she cared for them but because it was expected of her. Her two younger sisters merged into one blurry character, while her older sister's personality was entirely reduced to the being the 'problematic' one. Alvarez presents us with a rather simplistic take of mental disorders and the sister who is possibly bipolar was a mere plot device that would enable Antonia to embark on her 'new life'.
The book does pose some thought-provoking questions, especially regarding what people owe to each themselves and each other, but stylistically it just wasn't for me. I hope other readers will be able to connected with Alvarez's story and her characters more than I was.
April 21, 2020
Antonia is a retired literature professor whose husband has just died and she is left to make sense of her life. She has three sisters who are all very close but are a source of drama, and then she gets wrapped up in the lives of some of the undocumented workers living nearby. The very beginning and end are written more poetically but the majority of the middle is more straightforward.
I can't believe I haven't read this author before but I get the sense that she tends to write longish family sagas. Because this spans so little time you only get the end of the story for a few characters. I think this aligns with the author's desire to write about this stage of life and it made me think a lot of my Mom who just this week moved into a home on her own, after living in the house I grew up in for almost 40 years, where my Dad passed away a few years ago. It's easy for your focus to become other people but then who are you? Very thought provoking for sure.
I had a copy from the publisher via in Netgalley and it came out April 7.
I can't believe I haven't read this author before but I get the sense that she tends to write longish family sagas. Because this spans so little time you only get the end of the story for a few characters. I think this aligns with the author's desire to write about this stage of life and it made me think a lot of my Mom who just this week moved into a home on her own, after living in the house I grew up in for almost 40 years, where my Dad passed away a few years ago. It's easy for your focus to become other people but then who are you? Very thought provoking for sure.
I had a copy from the publisher via in Netgalley and it came out April 7.
April 8, 2020
It's publication day! This book is now available.
3.5 stars
We women often tend to put other people's needs above our own. Even when we are facing crucial issues in our lives, we will set those issues aside if we think someone else's problems are more pressing. This is exactly what Antonia Vega does in Afterlife. Less than a year ago, her husband Sam died suddenly, and the pain of loss is still raw. She keeps telling herself she is going to make herself number one, but she gets sucked into other people's drama and puts her own healing process on hold.
Antonia has a sister with some mental health issues, and this sister goes missing. While she and her two other sisters are dealing with this crisis, Antonia is also sort of forced into a situation where she has to help some teenage undocumented workers, putting her at risk with law enforcement.
Only when these two incidents have been resolved does Antonia finally start in earnest to do the work of healing herself and finding a new life as a widow.
My favorite character was the one who's not there, Antonia's husband Sam. She knows he was a better person than she is. He was more generous, less judgmental, more willing to help others without hesitation. He lived by a saying his mother used when someone had a problem: "Let's see what love can do." Whenever Antonia is feeling small-minded, or petty, or selfish, she thinks of what Sam would have done in the same situation and she acts accordingly. Her hope is to give Sam an "afterlife" by keeping the best parts of him alive in herself.
I would have liked a little more depth, more exploration of Antonia's grieving. But Alvarez keeps it fairly light, given the subject matter. It's a slight little novel with very readable prose. I finished it in less than 24 hours. It's written in the present tense and has no quotation marks. Normally this would bother me, but in this case the style was so straightforward that it wasn't a problem.
3.5 stars
We women often tend to put other people's needs above our own. Even when we are facing crucial issues in our lives, we will set those issues aside if we think someone else's problems are more pressing. This is exactly what Antonia Vega does in Afterlife. Less than a year ago, her husband Sam died suddenly, and the pain of loss is still raw. She keeps telling herself she is going to make herself number one, but she gets sucked into other people's drama and puts her own healing process on hold.
Antonia has a sister with some mental health issues, and this sister goes missing. While she and her two other sisters are dealing with this crisis, Antonia is also sort of forced into a situation where she has to help some teenage undocumented workers, putting her at risk with law enforcement.
Only when these two incidents have been resolved does Antonia finally start in earnest to do the work of healing herself and finding a new life as a widow.
My favorite character was the one who's not there, Antonia's husband Sam. She knows he was a better person than she is. He was more generous, less judgmental, more willing to help others without hesitation. He lived by a saying his mother used when someone had a problem: "Let's see what love can do." Whenever Antonia is feeling small-minded, or petty, or selfish, she thinks of what Sam would have done in the same situation and she acts accordingly. Her hope is to give Sam an "afterlife" by keeping the best parts of him alive in herself.
I would have liked a little more depth, more exploration of Antonia's grieving. But Alvarez keeps it fairly light, given the subject matter. It's a slight little novel with very readable prose. I finished it in less than 24 hours. It's written in the present tense and has no quotation marks. Normally this would bother me, but in this case the style was so straightforward that it wasn't a problem.
May 22, 2020
Antonia Vega is recently widowed and retired. In fact, on the evening that she intended to celebrate her retirement, her husband Sam dies of a heart condition on his way to the restaurant. Antonia is left rudderless. “Afterlife” by Julia Alvarez is Antonia’s meditation on what will be her life, her calling, her existence after her husband dies and she has no career. Antonia is 66 years-old, hardly old enough to retire to a rocking chair on her porch and nap. But what is she to do?
She has her three sisters who bond her into the “sisterhood” of her family. The women are immigrants from the Dominican Republic, full of Latino emotion. The sisters plan to get together to celebrate Antonia’s birthday; just before the sisterhood meeting, Antonia’s neighbor, who utilizes undocumented workers, gets her involved in helping an undocumented female teen come to Vermont.
Antonia is uncomfortable in this role. It was her husband who was the kindhearted volunteer. Antonia was more private and reticent. Plus, one of her sisters goes missing and the “sisterhood” is inflamed.
Antonia internally wonders what she is to do with her new life. Is she to remain who she was or is she to embody the people who are no longer with her, the ones she loved, and behave as they did?
Author Julia Alvarez is beautiful with her prose. Her observations and thoughts transferred to Antonia are thoughtful and fascinating. This is a fantastic novel for those on the cusp of retirement or a life change. What is to be in the new life? What is the balance in the new life to be comfortable existing?
She has her three sisters who bond her into the “sisterhood” of her family. The women are immigrants from the Dominican Republic, full of Latino emotion. The sisters plan to get together to celebrate Antonia’s birthday; just before the sisterhood meeting, Antonia’s neighbor, who utilizes undocumented workers, gets her involved in helping an undocumented female teen come to Vermont.
Antonia is uncomfortable in this role. It was her husband who was the kindhearted volunteer. Antonia was more private and reticent. Plus, one of her sisters goes missing and the “sisterhood” is inflamed.
Antonia internally wonders what she is to do with her new life. Is she to remain who she was or is she to embody the people who are no longer with her, the ones she loved, and behave as they did?
Author Julia Alvarez is beautiful with her prose. Her observations and thoughts transferred to Antonia are thoughtful and fascinating. This is a fantastic novel for those on the cusp of retirement or a life change. What is to be in the new life? What is the balance in the new life to be comfortable existing?
February 23, 2020
I've enjoyed Alvarez's work in the past, so I was incredibly disappointed when I read her new novel. It's about Antonia, a recently widowed retired professor, her relationships with her sisters, and some undocumented immigrants she connects with through a man who is working on a neighboring Vermont farm. The problem was that I found I didn't care about any of the characters, and the plot seemed disjointed. I did not find even one likable character, which is a fiction deal breaker for me. Thanks to Edelweiss and to the publisher for this ARC.
March 18, 2021
Protagonist Antonia Vega, originally from the Dominican Republic, is a retired professor of literature living in Vermont. She has recently experienced multiple losses, including the sudden death of her husband. Her three sisters arrange for a birthday gathering, but one of them, suffering from mental health issues, disappears. She is also asked to intervene in a case of an undocumented migrant worker.
As the above summary indicates, there is a lot going on in this book. I enjoyed the first half, where Antonia tries the best she can to deal with grief. However, once the sister disappears, it turns into a mystery and (almost) a detective story with several twists. This entire mystery section did not feel integral to the story, especially in light of the way it resolves. Then Antonia gets involved in assisting the migrant worker, and I felt it lost momentum. It is a case of trying to do too much in one short novel, at least for me. I had previously read In the Time of the Butterflies, which I much preferred and recommend.
As the above summary indicates, there is a lot going on in this book. I enjoyed the first half, where Antonia tries the best she can to deal with grief. However, once the sister disappears, it turns into a mystery and (almost) a detective story with several twists. This entire mystery section did not feel integral to the story, especially in light of the way it resolves. Then Antonia gets involved in assisting the migrant worker, and I felt it lost momentum. It is a case of trying to do too much in one short novel, at least for me. I had previously read In the Time of the Butterflies, which I much preferred and recommend.
May 1, 2020
With a heavy heart, the newly widowed Antonia learns to navigate the complications of everyday life. She is a deliberate and conscientious thinking woman in her 60’s that suddenly finds herself faced with decisions about sisterhood, immigration, matchmaking, and who really matters most.
Through author Alvarez’s polished storytelling, we certainly know what’s going on in Antonia’s head along with the humor she finds in the nearby town’s name of Athol:).
Through author Alvarez’s polished storytelling, we certainly know what’s going on in Antonia’s head along with the humor she finds in the nearby town’s name of Athol:).
October 18, 2020
“Afterlife” is a slim contemplative and introspective novel that focuses on finding your way after the loss of a loved one and staying true to yourself - and others. Themes include race, immigration, familial ties and mental illness. Has a touch of the political to it, but not enough to be off-putting no matter what your personal leaning is.
A 3.5 - a bit too “talky” for me, but rounding up for the writing.
A 3.5 - a bit too “talky” for me, but rounding up for the writing.
April 30, 2020
4 Stars!
January 1, 2020
Afterlife is author Julia Alvarez's first adult novel in 15 years and is also the first book I have read by the author. I won this book via goodreads giveaways and had entered because the story seemed like something I would like and would tackle themes that are exceedingly important in the world we are currently living in. Unfortunately, to get right to the point, the book was just not very good. I had to force myself to finish it.
The writing style does remind me somewhat of an author who tries to switch from writing young adult style novels to regular adult literature. I am not sure if that is what the blurb meant by it being her first adult novel in 15 years. But, there are plenty of authors who succeed in this realm and Alvarez didn't deliver. The whole book is very flat and lifeless. I felt like I did not really get to know the characters nor the atmospheres around them well at all. The prose felt very shallow and forced. It does hit on themes of immigration, citizenship, police misconduct, loss, and mental health but in very shallow, often tokenizing ways. The representation of mental health and bipolar disorder in the book is particularly exploitative. The character struggling through a mental health crisis is portrayed as a villain purposely screwing up the lives of her sisters. Some of the things she does aren't even bad or things I would necessarily consider requiring treatment. They definitely punish any weirdness or eccentricity and the way it is written seems to suggest that this is completely fine. The way her story ends, I will avoid spoilers, is written in this same exploitative way of a person's struggle used as a plot point to help the other characters move forward rather than as a journey for the disabled character herself.
Another issue with this book is the organization and style of it. It is written in the style where no quotations (or paragraph breaks or much punctuation at all) are used when people are speaking. I have read some books where authors are able to master this quite well and it works out. It did not work out in this book. I was constantly asking myself: Who said that? Was that someone talking or was that someone thinking? Was that part of the story or a quote? Then there are other sections where she randomly uses quotation marks. Why? If the story was going to have this much dialogue, why did the author nor the editor push for more punctuation or a different style?
The organization of the book is also all over the place. Once again, I have read many books that have this whole stream of consciousness way of writing and it can be done well. But this one just jumped all over the place and rushed from thing to thing. It seemed almost like a first draft of something. The book is 256 pages, but they are small pages with large lettering. So, at least it was short. I finished it because it interested me enough to know what was going to happen. In the end, I wish I would have put it down and picked up another book. Perhaps this author was just out of practice. It looks like she has written some really great novels. This was not one of them unfortunately.
This was also posted to my blog .
The writing style does remind me somewhat of an author who tries to switch from writing young adult style novels to regular adult literature. I am not sure if that is what the blurb meant by it being her first adult novel in 15 years. But, there are plenty of authors who succeed in this realm and Alvarez didn't deliver. The whole book is very flat and lifeless. I felt like I did not really get to know the characters nor the atmospheres around them well at all. The prose felt very shallow and forced. It does hit on themes of immigration, citizenship, police misconduct, loss, and mental health but in very shallow, often tokenizing ways. The representation of mental health and bipolar disorder in the book is particularly exploitative. The character struggling through a mental health crisis is portrayed as a villain purposely screwing up the lives of her sisters. Some of the things she does aren't even bad or things I would necessarily consider requiring treatment. They definitely punish any weirdness or eccentricity and the way it is written seems to suggest that this is completely fine. The way her story ends, I will avoid spoilers, is written in this same exploitative way of a person's struggle used as a plot point to help the other characters move forward rather than as a journey for the disabled character herself.
Another issue with this book is the organization and style of it. It is written in the style where no quotations (or paragraph breaks or much punctuation at all) are used when people are speaking. I have read some books where authors are able to master this quite well and it works out. It did not work out in this book. I was constantly asking myself: Who said that? Was that someone talking or was that someone thinking? Was that part of the story or a quote? Then there are other sections where she randomly uses quotation marks. Why? If the story was going to have this much dialogue, why did the author nor the editor push for more punctuation or a different style?
The organization of the book is also all over the place. Once again, I have read many books that have this whole stream of consciousness way of writing and it can be done well. But this one just jumped all over the place and rushed from thing to thing. It seemed almost like a first draft of something. The book is 256 pages, but they are small pages with large lettering. So, at least it was short. I finished it because it interested me enough to know what was going to happen. In the end, I wish I would have put it down and picked up another book. Perhaps this author was just out of practice. It looks like she has written some really great novels. This was not one of them unfortunately.
This was also posted to my blog .
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