Recent Reads: The Life After Volume 1 by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Gabo

The Life After by Joshua Hale Fialkov (Writer) and Gabo (Artist)
Series:The Life After, Volume 1
Publisher: Oni Press
Publication Date:  January 28, 2015

 

Format: ebook
Source: From Oni Press in exchange for an honest review. Receiving this book in no way effects my opinion or review.

Rating:


Goodreads Synopsis: 

Jude's life is nothing special. It seems like every day is just a repeat of the last one, until one day, he meets a woman and can suddenly see into her past -- revealing that he is actually in Purgatory for suicides. Now that he's awake, he and the legendary Ernest Hemingway are on the path to change things in the afterlife for the better. Of course, that might not sit very well with the bigwigs down below or up above. Can just a few people change the course of billions of souls? Collects the first five issues of the ongoing series.

Review: 
Talk about a weird book. I am not sure about this one - I was between a 3 and a 4 rating but because it was so off the wall I gave it 4 for creativity. The Life After is a play on heaven, hell, and various purgatories - but also something more, everything is kind of creepy...

Jude is living his own form of Groundhog's Day, the same thing on repeat forever - all of a sudden he realizes that his 'life' isn't what it seems, there are forces controlling his and the lives of everyone around him. Once he realizes that he can break free from this all sorts of craziness happens and heaven and hell are both after him for screwing up their system. 

I found this book both wacky and interesting though. Jude is the main character - seen by the reader as almost Christ-esq, then we have Ernest Hemingway as his guide/ teacher the whole thing reminds me of Dante... Although more sci-fi and nightmarish. 

The story is good, people are out to get Jude, Hemingway trying to help, them getting into lots of trouble, characters popping in and out. I thought it was very creative...just very strange.