The Afterlife of Holly Chase
By Cynthia Hand
5 stars
For a long time I have heard that this book is the book to read during the holidays and this year I finally decided to give it a go and all I can say is that I wished I had read this book sooner. The Afterlife of Holly Chase is the definition of a feel good book that will definitely make you smile and even laugh.
In the Afterlife of Holly Chase we follow Holly, who on Christmas Eve five years ago was visited by three ghosts who showed her how selfish and spoiled she'd become. They tried to convince her to mend her ways. She didn't. And then she died. Now she's stuck working for the top-secret company Project Scrooge--as the latest Ghost of Christmas Past.
In this book we follow two of the most unlikeable characters I have ever read about Holly and Ethan, and despite that they are very unlikeable you end up rooting for them to succeed. First we have Holly, Holly was a hard character for me, she is definitely unlikeable and I didn’t agree with most of the decisions she made however that is the point of the book so her character worked perfectly. Then we have Ethan, who even though is also unlikeable I ended up liking him a lot more and rooting for him to mend his ways. The secondary characters are great as well, I especially adored all of the people who worked at project scrooge.
The setting is fantastic as well, I love having the city of New York as a background to the story and I was able to perfectly picture Holly as she had her many adventures through the city. The writing style is great and I am really looking forward to see what else the author can do. I have mixed feelings about the ending, I was expecting something completely different and although it wasn’t was a was hoping for I was still very satisfied with the fate of the characters.
Overall The Afterlife of Holly Chase is a feel good Christmas book that everyone should read. It gives an interesting new perspective to the scrooge story and I absolutely loved the idea of having people working on helping other people be better.
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