We center on Tenley - a particularly special girl with a special destiny and an especially special personality. The best part? The book goes on and on about how there's No Second Chance - once you die, that's it and you can never go back. Let me repeat this: The entire plot of this book is which side Tenley will choose to fight for and we have no idea why they're fighting.

BUT it's never explained (A) the purpose of the war and (B) what they are fighting for. Troika and Myriad are at war and have been at war for over a hundred years and are constantly sending 'laborers' to recruit more soldiers. She declines to make a decision and is thrown into essentially a concentration camp by her parents until either (A) she signs with one or (B) she ages out (at 18). Tenely (our main character) is at the age of consent (17) and thus can be recruited by either side. If you are Unsigned, you go to Many Ends (Purgatory). If you signed with one of the two realms (Troika and Myriad aka Heaven and Hell), you will go there. Kidding.Īfter you die on Earth, your Firstlife is over. I can handle a book is a bit sucky on any one of those, or even two. It violated the three 'Big Three': Plot, Character and Dialogue. This has (quite possibly) been the most difficult book I've ever forced myself through. Latest BookTube Video is up - a totally serious take on writing Young Adult Lit! The Written Review Who can she trust? And what if the realm she’s drawn to isn’t home to the boy she’s falling for? She just has to stay alive long enough to make a decision… Soon, Ten finds herself on the run, caught in a wild tug-of-war between the two realms who will do anything to win the right to her soul. Both will do anything to recruit Ten, including sending their top Laborers to lure her to their side. In the Everlife, two realms are in power: Troika and Myriad, longtime enemies and deadly rivals. There is an eternal truth most of the world has come to accept: Firstlife is merely a dress rehearsal, and real life begins after death. The reason? Not her obsession with numbers, but her refusal to let her parents choose where she’ll live-after she dies. Tenley “Ten” Lockwood is an average seventeen-year-old girl…who has spent the past thirteen months locked inside the Prynne Asylum. My name is Tenley Lockwood and very soon, I've been told history is written by survivors.

Firstlife by Gena Showalter