In The Afterlife, Gary Soto has created a book that is great for anybody from the ages 10 and up. The book quickly jumps into interesting moments. Chuy the main character gets stabbed for commenting a guys yellow shoe. You'd think a knife in the ribs would be the end of him, but it's when it finally gets interesting. Chuy quickly turns into a ghost when he is dead and he has a chance to actually see his self getting stabbed, His body dead, his ghost alive, witnessing his blood leaking on the bathroom floor. Chuy is now flying everywhere. He visits his friends and family invisibly. While he is invisible he sees his mom talking to Chuys best friend telling him to find the person that did this to Chuy and he also sees that she gives Chuys friend a gun. Nobody can see, hear or most likely do anything to Chuy and he can't do anything also. He's trying to find a way to stop his moms commands while he is recognizing that he is slowly vanishing. As he is trying to fix the problem he finds out he is not the only one dead in Fresno, California. He quickly tumbles into what may be true love, maybe ghostly love, but love.


I would recommend this book to young teens, mostly because the book never gets boring and keeps you interested in reading it. This is also a good book because it uses situational irony because nobody really knows that you can have an afterlife as a ghost.