“But Love doesn’t always have to be about the Happy Ending. Love can be about beginnings, too.”
The Afterlife of Holly Chase
This winter break, if you want to kick your feet up and pick up a good book by a snowy window, there is a perfect book with much holiday warmth: The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand offers a modern rewrite to A Christmas Carol filled with pain, sadness, loss, romance, hope, and more.
Instead of an old cranky Scrooge, the story revolves around 17-year-old Holly Chase. Just like Ebenezer Scrooge, Holly Chase was visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve to show how much of a selfish self-centered person she had become and a chance to change her ways. However, in contrast to Scrooge, Holly did not heed the warning and well, died.
The death of Holly Chase was not the end, however, as she’s stuck working for Project Scrooge, a top-secret organization where she is now the Ghost of Christmas Past. Instead of dying and then passing on, Holly is stuck in a sort of purgatory between life and death.
The novel revolves around the theme of the loss of loved ones. More specifically, how someone deals with loss can be impactful. Multiple characters were portrayed with their separate losses, and how those experiences shaped them. The book was written in a way that put me in the shoes of a wealthy 17-year-old who lost life as she knew it, and then woke up to a harsh reality. Now with Holly working behind the scenes, things get complicated as she falls into a rabbit hole of her past, present, and future.
Perhaps what stood out to me as an avid reader is the supernatural and science fiction combination made to fit into a Christmas legend. Along with the magical aspects of the movie, I appreciated how they dove into the idea of, “what if the Scrooge character didn’t change?” Perhaps realistically, as only one night of confrontation was not enough for a 17-year-old who had everything she could materialistically desire. Instead, her character development was a slow burn, but one that was needed to truly change the cold heart of a young Scrooge. Moreover, I applaud Cynthia Hand for implementing details from the original A Christmas Carol and other works from Charles Dickens.
In the end, did Holly Chase get her happily ever after? Well, that’s an answer for the next person embarking on this book journey. With that, I wish you luck!