Everlost

Book: Everlost
Author: Neal Shusterman
Audience: Teen
In a Nutshell: imagine spending eternity caught between life and death with chocolate on your face

Adventure-packed, often thought-provoking fantasy about two children who end up stuck between life and death, where as "Everlights," their feet sink through the living world, and only things and places either greatly loved or touched by death are solid.

Nick and Allie died in the same car crash, but before they were able to go to the infamous Light, they were bounced off-course by running into each other. They wake up 9 months later, in the world but separate, and they meet a boy they name Leif who has forgotten his real name. He would rather stay in his forest, but like most Greensouls (new kids to Everlost), Nick and Allie want to find their homes. The three eventually make their way to New York and find the famous Mary Hightower, a girl who has taken on a motherly role in gathering and caring for Afterlights. She lives in the Twin Towers, two of a handful of buildings that have crossed over in their entirety. Allie doesn't like Mary's complacency- Allie wants to find a way home, or at least out. Her attempts to learn ways to interact with the living world backfire, and Nick and Leif are taken prisoner. To rescue them, she must face the dreaded monster, the McGill.

Nicely done, with a good combo of action and intriguing worldbuilding. There are several references to bygone historical places like the Twin Towers and a pier w/ Shiloh the Diving Horse; some will probably go over readers' heads, but there's a little history to be learned here for the motivated backstory pursuer, and lots of great atmosphere whether you fully "get it" or not.

The author doesn't get into the worldviews of where children go when they finally move on- Everlost is an imagined middle ground, a place to explore the way that the past haunts the living, whether it's through memory or actual ghostly remnants, and what helps these ghosts to move on.