Series: Atman City (1st & 2nd of 3 books)
Genres: Afterlife
Year: 2013-2014
Age: 12+
Stars: 2.5/5
Pros: Fresh spin on the afterlife trope. Teen POC adopted by white parents and in an interracial relationship. A side character gets an imaginative, interesting story.
Cons: The lead has a pattern of repeating the same mistakes and is cut a lot of slack regardless. Also, in Book 2, love triangle rears its head...
Will appeal to: Those who love stubborn heroines, romance and adventures in an afterlife context.
Blurb for Life After Dez: Bleeding to death on the side of a rural highway turns out to be the easiest part of Dez Donnelly’s unexpected Saturday. Swept away to Atman Station, the crossroads of the afterlife, Dez discovers her unprepared soul is trapped between worlds in a limbo existence where she’s given two choices: join the program or face the consequences. Her new reality is conduct manuals, propaganda, and unrelenting staff orchestrating a complex program designed to help transitional souls accept death and move on. To make matters worse, the beautiful and enticing Atman City - a stunning but dangerous metropolis that borders the outer boundaries of the station - is strictly off-limits to underage souls. Dez has to choose: go along to get along, or fight for the future she believed in. (Amazon excerpt)
Blurb for Missing in Atman: Dez is finally hitting her afterlife stride. She hasn’t missed a meeting or session in forty-two days, and she’s put the adventures and danger of her first days at Atman behind her. Life after death is becoming tolerable, yet nothing is quite what she’d hoped. In a missed encounter with Crosby, her prying gaze lands upon a single entry in the datebook on his unoccupied desk. These few, hastily scribbled words reveal an enormous secret he’s keeping from her. Possessed by a painful sense of betrayal, she once again sneaks off to Atman City, determined to find answers to an unresolved piece of her life. It begins as all their adventures do, but a stop in an unfamiliar neighborhood sets forth a chaotic series of events. Dez will have to fight for her very existence, and will face painful, irreparable loss in an afterlife teeming with demons wielding ancient powers. (Amazon excerpt)
Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I received these books from the author after approaching her on Twitter with a couple of questions about Book 3 and the series re-release (Reed put forth the new edition of Book 1 & 2 by herself, and is working on the final installment in the trilogy). She volunteered to send me Life After Dez and Missing in Atman in exchange for an honest review. That didn't affect my opinion and rating in any way. Please note: as a rule, I review all books in a series separately - except in particular instances. Since I got these two together, and most of what I had to say applied to both, I made an exception here. I hope it doesn't inconvenience you in any way.
