Me & Death: An Afterlife Adventure

Jacket:
Fresh from having stolen a piece of fruit and taunting the grocer, Jim, a fourteen-year-old wannabe gangster, bully, and car thief, is run over by a car. What follows is a hilarious, bleak, and ultimately hopeful visit to the afterworld, courtesy of Richard Scrimger, one of the country’s finest writers.

This is an afterlife peopled with unforgettable characters that might be drawn from video games: angry Slayers, tearful Mourners, and scary Grave Walkers. Jim meets them all and is given the chance to return to earth with the extraordinary gift of knowing what happens when we die. Now he must deal with living demons, including a neighborhood torturer and a truly creepy older sister.

As the days went by I continued to act strange for me. p.95

Me and Death reminded a little of A Christmas Carol which obviously influenced this book.  In fact, that was even pointed out in one chapter of the book.  Jim was a no good burgeoning thug until he had an near death experience and three extremely disturbing visions accompanied by three extremely different ghosts.  There are even parallels to the ghosts in A Christmas Carol.  When he wakes up, he tries to live a different life and make amends for the bullying and stealing he's done, but he finds that is harder to do than he thought.  I was amused by some of his attempts.  I was surprised by the ending.  I thought that something else was going to happen but it made sense, especially given something Jim sees in one of his visions.  I liked the ending and enjoyed the story overall.  Some of it seemed too simple, but then maybe things in life are simple sometimes.  It's just a matter of saying "Sorry."


*won from Library Thing's Early Reviewers*