Review: Life, After By: Sarah Darer Littman

Title: Life, After
Author: Sarah Darer Littman
Publisher: Scholastic Press, 288 Pages (July 1st 2010)
From: the Publisher - Thank You!

Synopsis: Everything changes for Dani and her family when a truck loaded with explosives detonates outside the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing her beloved aunt and unborn cousin. Because of the ensuing political upheaval, economic hardship, and emotional toll, Dani's family moves to the U.S. It is a terrifying place--new school, new language, new hardships--and Dani's angry father is turning into a stranger, more so everyday. Just when Dani thinks she is about to lose it, she befriends Jessica, one of the girls who has been cruelly teasing her since she arrived.

It is the most unlikely of friendships. Jessica is wealthy, groomed, spoiled. But Jessica has a past that only Dani can understand. She lost her father in 9/11. It is a friendship that allows them both to heal in unexpected and surprising ways, and changes them and their families forever.

Review: 3 Stars - Life, After was a touching novel about a teenage girl named Dani and her family and the direct affects that terrorism, and “The Crisis” had on them and everyone living not only in Buenos Aires, but throughout Argentina.

Dani and her family are faced with more then hard times due to crisis after crisis including a terrorism bombing that more then hurt her family and so many others. With most of the country falling on hard times, many flee in search of a better life.

When things become apparent to her mother that the family is in more trouble than they can get out of and growing worse by the day, she goes against her husbands wishes and chooses to move to America in search of safety and a better life for Dani and her younger sister. Going against her fathers’ strong values, it takes some convincing, but he gives in and they move to the US.

The dramatic changes the whole family face when having to be uprooted from one country to another were stressful to say the least and Dani seemed to take on a lot when it came to her family. She had so many responsibilities and I felt she often missed out on much of what it means to be a teenager. At school she finds a few people who are nice to her and some that aren’t so nice. She ends up becoming friends with a boy who has Asperger’s Syndrome and how she is with him were some of my favorite parts in the story.

Slow in spots and emotional in others - Dani took so much in stride – but what she has to go through to get there is what made this book all that it was. Readers will appreciate the vast relationships new and old to country to country and culture to culture – Life, After shows us just how different we all are and how we can relate to each other if we all take the time to listen.

FTC Disclaimer: I did not pay for this book, nor have I been compensated at all in any way or means for reading and writing this review.