The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

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Title: The Afterlife of Holly Chase
Author: Cynthia Hand
Published by: HarperAudio
Release Date: October 24, 2017
Format: Audiobook, ebook
Narrator: Erin Spencer
Pages: 398
Length: 10 hours
Genres: Holiday, Retelling, Young Adult, Contemporary Fantasy, Magical Realism
Potential Triggers: [View post to see spoiler]
Source: Libby, Overdrive
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 Backlist Reader Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 HoHoHo Readathon
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:

Blurb:

Before I Fall meets "bah, humbug" in this contemporary YA reimagining of A Christmas Carol from New York Times best-selling author Cynthia Hand.

On Christmas Eve five years ago, 17-year-old Holly Chase 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 their latest Ghost of Christmas Past. So far, Holly's afterlife has been miserable. But this year's Scrooge is different. This year's Scrooge might change everything....

The Afterlife of Holly Chase is a witty, poignant, and insightful novel about life, love, and seizing second (or third) chances, perfect for listeners who loved Before I Fall or Dash and Lily's Book of Dares.

4 stars — That was a surprisingly emotional read for me. Like, seriously, I cried more than was probably warranted.

I split time between reading and listening, but I really enjoyed Ms. Spencer’s narration. She had a great balance of emotion and snark that was needed with Holly. Solid pacing and voices as well.

This one felt a bit different for me, because it was a bit of a struggle to love Holly. She really was not a great person, fitting the Scrooge archetype. And I think I expected her to change more immediately after she died, and it just wasn’t that apparent. Or at least not as much as I expected. So following in the head of someone so self-absorbed and jaded was hard. But the interesting thing is that Ms. Hand truly does give the reader glimpses of how she came to be this way, and the great well of hurt within her. I actually appreciated that her growth was slow, it was more believable. I can’t decide if they dragged out the meanness too long though, making the morning wake up less believable?

Ethan was a similarly challenging hero, both from the meanness perspective, but definitely from the emotional toll perspective. God this book was hard. I definitely wasn’t super invested in the romance because of a bunch of stuff surrounding it, but that’s okay. It worked out in the end.

The concept was interesting, and I definitely had a few different theories going, some I got partially right, but still some surprises along the way for how it tied in.

And the ending was really satisfying. Cheesy, yes, but I needed that.