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In this nonfiction work, Evidence of the Afterlife , Long presents one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of an afterlife yet. Mitch Albom, the bestselling author of Tuesdays with Morrie , brings us this novel exploring the idea that heaven is more than just a place. Protagonist Antonia Vega, originally from the Dominican Republic, is a retired professor of literature living in Vermont. She has recently experienced multiple losses, including the sudden death of her husband. Her three sisters arrange for a birthday gathering, but one of them, suffering from mental health issues, disappears. She is also asked to intervene in a case of an undocumented migrant worker.
The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents Through these stories, James Van Praagh takes the reader on a journey between life and the afterlife. He conveys everything he’s learned from his time in the medium business, from the importance of karma to the dangers of emotional baggage. Annie Kagan isn’t a medium, but she has communicated with the dead: her deceased brother, Billy. In The Afterlife of Billy Fingers , Annie shares the true story of how her brother started speaking with her, weeks after his untimely death. The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.She has her three sisters who bond her into the “sisterhood” of her family. The women are immigrants from the Dominican Republic, full of Latino emotion. The sisters plan to get together to celebrate Antonia’s birthday; just before the sisterhood meeting, Antonia’s neighbor, who utilizes undocumented workers, gets her involved in helping an undocumented female teen come to Vermont. From a state of deep hypnosis--or “superconsciousness”--subjects describe precisely what happened to them between states of reincarnation (here are more books on recarnation if this interests you). They explain what they experienced between the end of a previous life and the start of the next. While reading countless books on immigration over the years and hoping that the protagonists do well in their new country, I often wonder how living a life as Americans affects their culture. In Afterlife, Julia Alvarez provides me with a poignant answer. After a lifetime of teaching and writing fiction and poetry, Julia Alvarez is still the same humorous, Dominican writer of strung out run on sentences who is not afraid to be blunt to her fictional sisters and to her readers. I did not laugh as I did during Garcia Girls and Yo! because Alvarez has reached a new stage of life and is now a padrina who can dispense a lifetime of knowledge to younger generations. I thought at times that this new chapter to the Garcia Girls’ story felt forced as though Alvarez felt obligated after all these years to continue where she left off. I know in the twilight of her life where Antonia/Yolanda/Julia is emotionally and politically. Not original, Afterlife is a fitting swan song to a career as an immigration- centric writer. I hope that Alvarez still has some funny stories left to tell, but if she does not, Afterlife was worth the wait. On Life After Death provides expert, in-depth research on life after depth, as well as Dr. Kubler-Ross’s personal thoughts opinions about the topic. Dr. Long and his wife, Jody, founded the Near Death Experience Research Foundation in 1998. Their goal was to create a forum for “experiencers” to tell their stories.
Journey of Souls presents a unique interpretation of the afterlife and what happens there, depicted through tales of past-life regression. That certainly describes the protagonist of her new novel, “Afterlife.” Antonia Vega is, like her creator, an immigrant to the United States from the Dominican Republic and, also like Alvarez, a retired professor of literature. “Antonia is trying not to be trapped, trying not to have to choose to go down into a certain bunker of ethnicity and identity,” says Alvarez. “She’s aware of the diversity within herself and the complicated feelings that people around her have about it, even people she chooses to admire.” Wouldn’t it make a great book? She had mentioned it several times to Sam. Short chapters about the people who keep our world going? Invisible people we don’t even know about? Alice refuses to believe her mother abandoned her, and instead, searches diligently for her mother online. She pores over her mother’s journals for clues. Eventually, Jenna’s memories of her mother synchronize with events as they unfold in the journals.Scientists have argued that near-death experiences are impossible, and Dr. Eben Alexander was among the skeptics. As a skilled neurosurgeon, Dr. Alexander understood that NDEs felt real; but he theorized that they were merely hallucinations induced by extreme stress. The plot itself was just really flawed and not engaging at all, to the point where I didn't want to finish reading but forced myself so I could write a review based on the whole of the book. It was confusing at times, as in you could not see the plot going anywhere, it just sort of floated around. The discovery of who Draven was was left really late in the book, despite all the signs being there. The story about Keira/Catherine escaping from a stalker who kidnapped her felt like it was thrown in at the last minute and it wasn't properly embedded in the plot. The whole idea that Keira could see weird demons and stuff was just confusing and didn't add to the story.
There are moments when somebody is passed out in your garage and you have to do something,” says Alvarez. “You can’t just say ‘This isn’t my business.’ On the other hand, there is a sort of moral condescension that happens when you think you are going to manage the salvation of a person. It’s a balance, and not always an easy one.” Antonia doesn’t know what to do after sudden death of her beloved husband but before rethinking about her afterlife, she has to deal with her sister’s vanishing: Izzy who is fighting with her mental illness. And of course she encounters with a girl at her door steps, pregnant and undocumented teenager. A fast and riveting start of the story hooks you from the beginning and keeping your attention alive till the end. At the same time, Antonia attempts to communicate with one of her sisters, Izzy, who suffers from severe mental illness. Sadly, she and the other Vega sisters are unable to put ground beneath Izzy’s feet; sometimes even the hardest work cannot keep a person from breaking. The final chapter of “Afterlife” is titled “Japanese repair technique,” after the kintsugi practice of repairing shattered porcelain with veins of gold, thereby creating new beauty from the broken. If you want to take a deep-dive into near-death experiences (NDEs), The Near-Death Experience is essential reading. Its collection of NDE cases and stories provides a wide range of perspectives. It helps readers think about the phenomenon through many different lenses. My favorite character was the one who's not there, Antonia's husband Sam. She knows he was a better person than she is. He was more generous, less judgmental, more willing to help others without hesitation. He lived by a saying his mother used when someone had a problem: "Let's see what love can do." Whenever Antonia is feeling small-minded, or petty, or selfish, she thinks of what Sam would have done in the same situation and she acts accordingly. Her hope is to give Sam an "afterlife" by keeping the best parts of him alive in herself.A small book with a big heart and deep insights. I found this story to be a journey of self reflection and keen observations which grappled with big questions...what do we owe ourselves and others? And what is the right thing to do?
Afterlife is the latest novel by author Julia Alvarez, a favorite writer of mine for many years. This is a beautiful book about not only loss, but loyalty and love and friendship and family. Most importantly, this is a story of how we can come to grips with loss and all of its consequences in one's life, and manage to go on. The Prologue in this unforgettable novel is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking pieces of prose/poetry that I have read, as Antonia repeatedly asks, "Can you please help me find him?" We witness the fragmentation of Antonia's life as she comes undone as she desperately tries to put all of the pieces together once more. So the book starts out new girl in a new town, becoming friends with the locals, and then her first glimpse of the mysterious Dravens, catching the eye of the Dravens, and getting an invite up to the VIP area of the club they own and where they dwell night after night but for a limited time only. This happens much to the disbelief of the locals because “gasp” no one has ever managed to break into the inner circle before. Sound familiar? It reminded me of Twilight which is not a favorite of mine. It even has a similar first sighting when they all walk in to the club together but instead of gossipy teenagers pretending not to pay attention, it was tipsy college kids straining to have a look at them or to be noticed by them. They even have their own table in the cafeteria, oops I mean club. After the initial twilight similarities died it did seem to take its own different turn and I do try to make it past the introductory chapters before I give up on a book. I try to give it a fair shot. Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling. Antonia Vega is newly retired and widowed, meeting both of life’s milestones on the same day. Having taught for over thirty years at the same Vermont college, Antonia pulls out a lifetime of authors and quotations to place meaning on the synchronization of these moments. Sprinkled throughout the text are quotes by everyone from Tolstoy to Kingsolver with a myriad of authors in between. Even though Antonia has lived in the same Burlington community for decades, she has been rooted to her job, her students, having no children of her own and playing the bad cop to her husband’s good cop. Now, Sam is gone, and her role nurturing generations of students young enough to be her grandchildren along with him. During each pause in her day, Antonia longs to communicate with Sam, believing that he is speaking to her, or, perhaps, part of her, during his afterlife. After a lifetime of marriage, perhaps this is just Antonia’s inner conscience guiding her through life so that she does not succumb to a world of grief. Without any children of her all Antonia has left are her quotations and haikus, and her sisters. But it wasn’t that she didn’t feel as much as they did, but that she doled it out in limited portion. Of course, any such divergence from the culture of the sisterhood was considered a betrayal.In this article, we’ll offer our top 15 favorite books to help you understand life after death. Whether you’re a believer or not, these books will give you something to think about and a new perspective on mortality. 1. Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon - Survival of Bodily Death by Raymond A. Moody, Jr.