Hereafter by Tara Hudson

Title/Author: Hereafter (Hereafter #1) by Tara Hudson
Publisher/Date published: HarperTeen, June 7th 2011
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "Can there truly be love after death?
Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life — or her actual death — she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.
Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world... forever."

This book left me with a lot of questions. Amelia, and therefore the reader as well, knows very little about the whole ghost-lore and the how and why of everything. I liked the twist on ghosts that they couldn't touch anything, but also couldn't float through walls/people/anything standing in the way. Which means you can't just creepily haunt people in their sleep by floating in through their closed window. Which is kind of reassuring.

The writing flows very nicely and I was invested in Amelia and Joshua's story, but I did have some issues with this book. For example, it takes place in about a week, 5 of which Joshua and Amelia spend together. And she says she loves him. You CAN'T love someone after a week of knowing them!! Not if it's not your newborn baby, who you can love in 2 seconds (you've also had about 9 months to get used to the idea, but still). I mean, really, it's not love. It's a crush.

And towards the ending with the big showdown, I was kind of annoyed by how easy it all was for Amelia. She doesn't know how to use her ghostly powers and all of a sudden she scares away bad guys and escapes them like she's been doing it for years? It was a bit too convenient in my opinion.

I thought Amelia and Joshua were likeable main characters, but who really interests me is Ruth, Joshua's grandmother. She's got a lot of non-friendly feelings towards ghosts and I'm really dying (couldn't resist) to find out why! I mean, there has got to be a reason right? Something that happened in the past? And finding out what happens with Jillian will be interesting as well.

While I'm not so into the insta-love thing that was happening here, I did really enjoy the chemistry between Joshua and Amelia and I think that Hudson has created a world that I could explore for at least two more books (which is conventient, since it's the first in a trilogy) and I'm looking forward to getting some answers to the questions that popped up while reading this one!

My rating: 3,5 stars