The End or Something Like That by Ann Dee Ellis (review)

When Kim died, she left her best friend Emmy strict instructions on how to contact her in the afterlife. Emmy has done everything she’s supposed to, waiting at designated meeting spots for entire days for Kim to appear and consulting the books of psychic medium Dr. Ted Farnsworth, whom the girls met when he brought his act to their hometown of Las Vegas. Though Kim never manifests, the grieving Emmy does see her recently deceased teacher, as well as other persons now departed. Haunted not only by these specters but also by the guilt of how she treated Kim and her own chronic inability to own her emotions, Emmy struggles to make peace with her newfound gift, the loss of her friend, and the idea of moving on. Ellis (This Is What I Did:, BCCB 9/07) conveys intense ideas and emotions—from changing relationships to body image to budding romance to deep loss—in spare and exacting prose believable as the internal monologue of a protagonist who struggles to put voice to her feelings. Emmy makes a sympathetic and nuanced character, frustrating but never alienating as she clumsily moves through her grief while dealing with the peers and adults, portrayed here with observant precision, who make up her life. This is a sad novel, but not one wallowing in its misery; rather, with understated humor, compassion, and evenhandedness in its staccato sentences, it takes readers on a meaningful journey into grief and uncertainty—and gently leads them back to safety.