Chasing Before

Felicia Ward is still dead, but she's moved on to Level 3. Because of her work, people have been flooding into Level 3 because she broke the Morati's hold on Level 2. She is also reunited with her love, Neil. Together, they move on and immediately find that the records room was destroyed, obliterating any evidence that could help identify the Morati angels. Then the attacks get more frequent, targeting specific populations so the people are helpless. On top of all this, there is trouble in paradise as Neil pushes Felicia away and it becomes clear that they lost some memories from Earth. Can Felicia save Level 3 and fix her love life?

I wasn't a fan of The Memory of After, but I had already committed to review this installment. I figured I should go in with an open mind and I tried my hardest, but so many things caused me to roll my eyes in just the first few pages. Needless to say, I did not finish the book. First, the Morati destroy physical copies of people's records. Why aren't these records corporeal in the first place? If they can choose to make them anything, why not computers that can be backed up? It's incredibly convenient and just weird. Why are the records even needed? It's the afterlife with infinite possibilities. A character in the book even mentions this and it's summarily dismissed as if that's a satisfactory answer. Then, the world's rules are conveniently played with to allow even the most experienced people to die. It was established in the last book that physical harm could not come to people in the afterlife if they didn't think anything would actually hurt them. Suddenly, this is thrown out when the Morati get involved even though they were pretty present in the last book. There were way to many oddly convenient things happening that didn't feel organic or even sensical.

As with the last book, I had problems with many of the characters. Autumn is back since it's the afterlife and she's exactly the same as she was on Earth: way too self involved and invested in making sure she's better than Felicia and putting Felicia down at every turn. What kind of friendship is this? I get that toxic relationships exist, but why doesn't Felicia see how bad this is or at least say something about the horrible treatment? Neil is as sanctimonious and hypocritical as ever. Felicia and Neil have the opportunity to house together, but Neil freaks out and says no. First of all, if he had any self control at all and was actually committed to standing by his morals, living in the same room wouldn't matter. Second, they would nap together all the time on Earth which is totally ok and not sinful, but sleeping side by side at night is somehow evil. He also gets mad at her for not telling him everything, but he doesn't return the favor. He's very annoying, but Felicia insists on making their relationship work and do absolutely everything together than the overly attached girlfriend.

I ragequit Chasing Before when Neil's brother (who is there super conveniently) blackmails Felicia into doing something unforgivably mean to Autumn. This manufactured drama was the last straw. I knew she wouldn't even just say no because her lost memories are worth more to her than pretty much anything else in the whole book. I love Lenore Appelhans' blog and prose in general, but this series is just not for me.

My rating: Did Not Finish

The Memory of After

Felicia Ward died in a car accident and now resides in Level 2, a place where the dead can access their own memories and those shared by others in machines and servers. The vast majority of the residents use these machines and ability to share memories to relive nice, pleasant memories instead of hard ones that would allow them to examine their lives. Felicia is pretty happy with this existence until a girl she's close to unexpectedly relives her death and gets hurt by the malfunctioning machine. Felicia is whisked away in the madness by Julian, someone she would rather not see from her life on Earth. Apparently, she can help with this rude faction of angels called Morati who want to harvest the humans for their energy. Can Felicia help them out and save the humans?

The Memory of After is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed a lot of the concepts: the sharing of memories, the stages of the afterlife, and the faction of selfish angels that are jealous that humans can get to the true afterlife called the Morati. I also liked that people can create things just by thinking about them. Thought is very powerful in this world. If you think you will die or be hurt, you will be even though you are dead. If you think you will be fine, you will be. It seems simple, but it's hard to undo years of conditioning from living on earth. Felicia is an ok character. I like that she is fiercely loyal and unwilling to give up on her friends if there is any possibility that there is hope. Lenore Appelhans' prose is engaging and drew me into the story.

Unfortunately, the book frustrated me in a variety of ways. The afterlife world is based around an odd mix of Christian and Greek mythology. It didn't mesh well with me that angels are totally there as well as the different rivers of the Underworld. The two are like oil and water for me. Having Greek mythological elements without also having anything about the gods was annoying and distracting. I didn't expect it to be quite so religion based even though it's about the afterlife. I don't tend to gravitate towards books like that and it was disappointing to have such an emphasis on it. On Earth, Felicia and her boyfriend Neil are quite religious. I do like that she made her own choices and didn't let him make them for her. For instance, when the church wanted to shame her into signing a purity pledge and she refused even though Neil had signed it. However, she made some mistakes in her past like dating a guy when her best friend was also dating him and running away when she found that same friend murdered. She acted like she literally killed someone and that she was the most morally degenerate person who ever lived. This is one aspect of religion I really hate. Many of them emphasize self loathing and self flagellation after transgressions. The religion and mythos of the world didn't seem to go together and it bothered me.

Some of the the characters were just awful. Julian was a huge jerk even though he has some sort of magnetic connection to Felicia for no reason at all. The freedom fighters in Level 2 didn't care about civilian casualties or using people for their own ends. The Morati were basically a ripped off version of the machines from the Matrix except being addition jealous of humans and bitter that they can't go to the true afterlife. Neil is only slightly better than Julian. His sanctimoniousness makes him insufferable and instead of just refusing when she attempts to initiate any sort of sexual activity, he shames her because of his religion. What a nice boyfriend. Even her best friend Autumn just seemed like her life's work was to be better than Felicia and put her down in passive aggressive ways. There were very few people to root for or even like despite emphasizing morals and religion.

The Memory of After doesn't deliver what I expected. Instead of an interesting afterlife story, we get a weirdly preachy book that fuses Christian and Greek mythology nonsensically with mostly awful characters that I cared nothing about. The only saving grace was the writing I don't really want to read the sequel, but unfortunately I already committed to reviewing it.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins