Amy Huntley is a high-school English teacher and the author of The Everafter, a nonlinear young-adult ghost story shaped by lost objects, particle physics, poetry, memory, and first love. She built its fragmented structure with a scene chart while keeping the central romance nearly chronological.
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Years covered2009
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Madison Stanton doesn't know where she is or how she got there. But she does know this—she is dead. And alone, in a vast, dark space. The only company she has in this place are luminescent objects that turn out to be all the things Maddy lost while she was alive. And soon she discovers that with these artifacts, she can reexperience—and sometimes even change—moments from her life. Her first kiss. A trip to Disney World. Her sister's wedding. A disastrous sleepover. In reliving these moments, Maddy learns illuminating and sometimes frightening truths about her life—and death. This is a haunting and ultimately hopeful novel about the beauty of even the most insignificant moments—and the strength of true love even beyond death.
Print · 2009 · English
More About Amy Huntley
Amy Huntley is a high-school English teacher whose debut young-adult novel, The Everafter, follows a dead teenager revisiting her life through objects she lost. Huntley has described the story as a meeting point for particle physics, Emily Dickinson's poetry, a ghost story, time travel, and a chance remark among teachers about where lost things go.
The book's nonlinear form was deliberate rather than improvised. Huntley tracked each vignette by event, object, age, and insight, reordered the sequence during revision, and kept the romance between Maddy and Gabriel close to chronological so readers would have one stable narrative strand.
Professional reviews found both strengths and strain in that design. Publishers Weekly considered the premise and snapshot structure uneven but praised Madison, the tension, and the novel's slice-of-life realism; Kirkus's later audiobook review highlighted Tavia Gilbert's movement between ages and emotional states as Madison reconstructs her life and death.
