When Nick wages war against Mary Hightower, his strongest memory is of the chocolate bar which he’d smeared on his face just before the accident, and soon it becomes his dominant memory and thereby endangers his very existence. Most other memories are eventually lost too, which may or may not be so bad except that one becomes whatever memory survives. One of the quirks of the Everlost world is that its inhabitants soon start to forget who they are. The Grand Ole Opry, a weekly country music concert in Nashville that made country music famous, takes center stage in a few chapters. On that dreadful day, I stood in the student union at Judson College, unopened mail forgotten in my hand as I stared aghast at the horrifying television images.) Other tributes are less tragic. Another is that of the space shuttle Challenger, about which Shusterman writes, “Ask anyone who was alive at the time, and they will still remember where they were the moment that the shuttle Challenger blew up just thirty-three seconds after lifting off from Cape Canaveral”.

The most prevalent is that of the Hindenhurg, a German passenger airship that infamously exploded on May 6, 1937, while attempting to dock in New Jersey. I’m struck by the number of historical events to which Shusterman pays homage. Perhaps the most notable instance is that of the twin towers, whch are held forever in Everlost “by the memories of a mourning world, and by the dignity of the souls” who died that day. For example, because in Everlost “all things that have earned immortality remain forever in glory”, Shusterman puts himself in the enviable position of being able to offer recognition to real tragedies.

But there are other aspects of the second book in Shusteman’s series that captivated my heart. The front inside flap of Everwild reveals that the limbo world is now at war, accounts of which are certainly engrossing.

While Shusterman doesn’t, as I initially expected him to, pose questions about the specifics of heaven or hell or various recognized states of limbo, he does explore the BIG question about what happens after we die. As the tale continues to unravel, we learn that God hears prayers in Everlost and that there are also evil spirits. It isn’t purgatory or Nirvana, but is rather a completely new kind of limbo. Soon, Nick and Allie are introduced to the concept of inter-life, or that space between life and death. But instead of reaching that light, Nick and Allie bump into one another and awake in a forest clearing. Meet Nick and Allie, whose families’ cars crash head-on one fateful day, sending our hero and heroine hurtling down a tunnel towards a light. As such, and especially because this is a book by Neal Shusterman, who likes to pose grand questions, I read Everlost with the afterlife on my mind. The front inside flap of Everlost describes it as an imaginative novel that explores questions of life, death, and what might lie in between.

The everlost series