Us in the Before And After

Jenny Valentine

249 lk

Kirjastus Simon & Schuster

2024

Peategelane Elk (Elena) kohtus kunagi lapsena Mabiga (Mabel), kui ta oli pisut hädas ja Mab aitas ta sellest välja. Kahjuks ei jõudnud nad siis kontakte vahetada, kuigi mõlemad oleks seda väga tahtnud. Uuesti kohtusid tüdrukud seitsmendas klassis ja olid lahutamatud sellest hetkest saadik. Elkil on 5aastane vend Knox, Mabil tüdrukust kaks aastat vanem vend France (Francis), mõlemad on ka olulised tegelased raamatus.

Kuigi tüdrukutel on palju ühist, on ka asju, millest Mab üldse ei hooli, aga Elki pärast kannatab ära. Näiteks Elki pöörane füüsikahuvi, mille tüdruk oma vanaemalt sai. Knox ja France kuulavad Elki füüsikaseletusi alati suure huviga 🙂

Raamatu alguses selgub, et on toimunud mingi õnnetus ja Mab ilmselgelt on surnud, sest ta on kummitus, keda ainult Elk näeb.

Raamat põikab vaheldumisi minevikku ja olevikku ning lõpuks selgub ka, mis tüdrukutega juhtus ja miks Mab kummitus on.

Tegemist on küll kurva raamatuga, samas peale lugemist jääb ikkagi kuidagi helge tunne sisse. Kuigi õnnetus oli jube, on tüdrukute elus ka palju toredaid hetki olnud. Soovitan!

Palju mõtteid raamatust:

My gran left slowly, head first, top down, forgetting. It was the hardest thing to watch. Mab went in a matter of seconds. I guess that´s why so much of her is still here.
You try and understand irony in English class and then it swoops down in real life and slams you square in the face.
I´d never met anyone who talked like that. Like poetry. Unfiltered. Like the honey that comes with the comb.
People waste their time alive doing nothing, she says, and I figure she only says it like that, with such venom, because she is dead. ´We wasted enough of it,´ I tell her. ´We were quite happy doing that.´ I´d be smarter about it if I got it back.
We found most stuff funny when we were together, I think. Mab made a point of enjoying a thing, everything, if at all possible. It was one of her few rules of life.
It was a good time and I´m glad I actually noticed, because nothing lasts for ever. Everything passes and then gets gone.
Reality existed for those boys because they let it. Imagine that, feeling like you can run your own world, and getting away with it.
Sometimes it is the broken things that hold the world together, it is in our weakness that we are strong.
Life has more imagination that we do, Elk. It has a bigger mind.
People say that when you die, your life flashes before you, episode by episode, memories one after the other like a reel of film. I don´t feel it like that. My life is a well, and I am drowning in it. It is everywhere.
There is always something, in the end, to stay dry for.
`We all love her,` he says, into the silence. `That´s why we miss her. That´s what grief is. Love with nowhere to go.´