behind the book · gayle forman · grief · teen books · YA books ·

Behind the Book: After Life by Gayle Forman

If you've ever talked to a HarperStacks team member at a conference, you know we love a good cry when we read. This was a book that stopped us all in our tracks (or at least interrupted our to-do list until we finished the whole thing in one sitting). I'm thrilled to get to finally share this one with the world and I think you'll really enjoy sharing it with your readers. Thinking it would be great for book clubs? We thought so too and created a discussion guide to help you out!

One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams.

Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now.

This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?

This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.

Hear From Gayle

Dear Reader:

I am often asked if I try to make readers cry. The answer is no. I wouldn’t know how to even if I wanted to, and while I am many things, sadist is not one of them ☺. What I do try to do, in my books, in my life, is give people hope. Not a false saccharine hope that everything will be puppies and daisies and happily-ever-afters, but a grounded-in-truth hope that even in the most challenging of times, there is beauty, there is grace, there is resilience.

Perfect for Book Club!

With it's unique and complex take on love, loss, and grief, After Life makes for the perfect book club title. And don't just take our word for it - Good Morning America selected this for it's first YA Book Club pick of 2025!

About the Author

Award-winning author and journalist Gayle Forman has written several bestselling novels for children and adults, including Not Nothing, the Just One series, and the number one New York Times bestseller If I Stay, which has been translated into more than forty languages and in 2014 was adapted into a major motion picture. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.

Praise for After Life!

"This is not a tragic story about the aftermath of a young girl’s early death; it is more the exploration of how all our lives are affected by all the stories of other people’s lives, whether we meet them or not. Teens in search of exploring the connections of life and surviving loss will be greatly moved by these richly created characters and the existential questions they pose that everyone would all love to have answered."
  — School Library Journal (starred review)
 
"Riveting plotting by Forman culminates in a bittersweet speculative tour de force that probes what it means to live, to lose, and to love."
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
"Forman’s ability to capture the voices of teens shines in this heart-wrenching story of Amber Crane’s life, death, and (sort of) undeath."
  — Kirkus Reviews
 
"Deeply relatable and sympathetic...The weight of comprehension of the devastating impact that her death had on her family is skillfully explored, as is the relief they each feel after having a second chance to be together, for however long that might be."
  — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"Gayle Forman has an uncanny ability to create characters in which we see ourselves, and her latest—which looks at where love goes, after a loss—is an honest, heartbreaking elegy to how memory makes relationships eternal."
  — Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author
 
"After Life is a beautifully woven, extraordinary page-turner about a girl who has miraculously come back to life. But is it actually a miracle? I was consumed by this thought-provoking, deftly written, multilayered novel. Gayle Forman reigns as the queen of breaking hearts with a touch of magic."
  — Adam Silvera, #1 New York Times bestselling author of They Both Die at the End
 
"After Life proves once again that Gayle Forman is a master of both high concept and character. Full of grace and beauty, this book asks big questions about loss and grief, guilt and forgiveness, without ever straying from its true center: the unbreakable bond of sibling love. Forman weaves seemingly unconnected threads throughout the book, blurring the lines between fate and coincidence, until bringing it all together in a revelatory ending. I won’t soon forget this one."
  — David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland
 
"After Life is a masterful tale about a family coping with loss, showing the way grief affects us and people we don't even know in ways we don't see. Once I met Amber and her family, I didn't want to let them go."
  — Brigid Kemmerer, New York Times bestselling author of Carving Shadows into Stone
 
“A moving, kaleidoscopic page-turner about love and regret, forgiveness and healing. From After Life's gripping first chapter, I couldn't put it down. Gayle Forman depicts the lives orbiting a tragedy with generosity, humor, and great humanity.”
  — Nina LaCour, Michael L. Printz-winning author of We Are Okay and Watch Over Me
 
"I remember reading my first Gayle Forman book and how it felt like I was holding magic in my hands. After Life is no different. An immersive, impossible to put down story about love, loss, and most importantly, memory. A testament to the bond between sisters."
  — Rachael Lippincott, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Five Feet Apart
 
"Forman is a master at making her readers fall in love — with a girl whose life is over, with a community of people in a small town who are barely surviving her loss, and with the incredible, surprising way everyone's stories knit together into a heartbreaking and hopeful whole."
  — E. Lockhart, #1 New York Times bestselling author of We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud
 
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