Hi ForeverBookers,
How are you all doing today? I hope your doing good! I’ve just finished “The Afterlife of Holly Chase,” which I really enjoyed. Christmas is almost here and for ONCE I’ve read a Christmassy book right before Christmas Day! YAY!
4 Stars!
I read “The Afterlife of Holly Chase” for a couple of readathons! They were:
Reading Rivalry - In December RR is doing types of films as books as their theme. Remake - Because "The Afterlife of Holly Chase" is like a remake of the book and movie, in this case "A Christmas Carol"! It has many of the same plot points!
The Orilium Magical Readathon - My race is Iltirian, the prompt for which is to read a book with a red cover. “The Afterlife of Holly Chase” has a red cover under the dust jacket so it counts!
Disney Magical Hopathon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3F55Y7bfU8&t=61s - Mickey’s Friendship Fare - Read a book that centres around friendship - Although there are other elements to the plot too, friendship is one of the main plot points of “The Afterlife of Holly Chase.”
The Orilium Academy - The Novice Path - “The Afterlife of Holly Chase" works for Ilterian heritage because it's got a red cover under the dust jacket - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74WujNazkMo.
"The Afterlife of Holly Chase" centres around our main character of Holly and how she died because she was rich, very selfish and thoughtless towards other people. She was visited by three ghosts, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas future. They decided she had to die. She has to join Project Scrooge, a company that tries to save Scrooges from themselves before it’s too late. She was too late to change first time, but can her fate change another time?
“But this year, everything is about to change . . .” is the tagline at the end of the blurb. Can it change for Holly? How? Why? You’ll need to read the book to find out!
Spoilers Below . . .
“I gossiped and spread rumors like it was going out of style. I knew I was being mean. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to be like Yvonne. Rich. Fashionable. Famous. I already had fifty thousand followers, and that was only the beginning. Eventually, I just knew it, everyone was going to know my name.
So that was me. Holly Evangeline Chase. Sixteen—almost seventeen—years old, five foot seven, 115 pounds, brown eyes, blond hair, killer fashion sense, and a perfectly horrible human being. That’s all you need to know about me for now, outside of the face that, like I mentioned, Yvonne was dead. And she’d been dead almost exactly seven months the night this story truly begins. The night everything changed.
Christmas Eve.”
This is how we’re introduced to Holly. As I said above, at the beginning of The Afterlife of Holly Chase, she is very selfish and a real brat! She takes after her rich step-mom, Yvonne. All she cares about is herself, as is evidenced above. She’s looking back on how she was here. She even thinks she was horrible! We see just HOW horrible she is, when she forces her servant, Elena, to stay and cook meals for her, instead of going home to spend Christmas with her daughter.
“I stared at her, my mouth opening in disbelief. “Wait, tomorrow? I’m supposed to eat this tomorrow? Where are you going to be?”
“I was going to spend the day with my daughter.”
“And who gave you the day off?”
“It’s Christmas.” She was looking at her hands again.
“So what if it’s Christmas?” I gasped, completely outraged. “I’m all alone here, and my dad pays you to attend to me. We didn’t discuss you having Christmas off.”
“But your father said—”
“I’m going to expect you to be here tomorrow...And maybe if you’re not here, in the morning, on time, then maybe I’ll have to find someone else to fill your position. Someone who will take this job seriously.”
shows just how much of a horrible person Holly is at the start of the novel. Her father is Douglass Chase, who is a rich film director. That means that Holly is automatically rich as well, and boy, do we see that in how stuck up she comes across in the first part of the novel. This kind of grated on me a little but it’s important to see how Holly was at the beginning to get the full picture of who she becomes by the end of the story. All Elena wants is to spend Christmas with her daughter, Nika. Of course, Holly doesn’t accept this and wants Christmas to be about her! She therefore threatens Elena’s job, which puts into events Nika’s death. This isn’t focused on at all in the story. It just happens. Elena and Nika aren’t seen after the first chapter, although they’re mentioned later in the story.
“Havisham,” he greeted me warmly in an English accent. “Delighted to meet you in person. Well, maybe not delighted. But glad.”
“That’s not my name,” I started. “My name is—”
“I know. But it’s tradition here to rename people after Dickens characters. A bit of an inside joke. I picked Havisham for you. It’s catchy right? Holly Havisham.”
O-kay. I blinked a few times. “Who—who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Mr. Sikes,” he said, as if that explained everything. “But people around here call me Boz.”
I found Boz to be an annoying, condescending character throughout. Luckily, we don’t have too many scenes with him in. He played the strict, boss figure because he is the boss of Project Scrooge. He becomes condescending when he refers to Holly as “dear,” as if Holly is too stupid to work out what she did was wrong later in the novel. I’m being vague because I don’t want to spoil the plot.
Project Scrooge is the place where failed Scrooges, people who hate Christmas and who can’t be saved, go to work on saving other Scrooges. Not everyone who works there is a failed Scrooge but Holly, our main character is, so we see everything from a failed Scrooge’s point of view. There isn’t much explanation about how Project Scrooge came to be.
“...until they’d decided I’d been there long enough. In other words, I was stuck.” Holly doesn’t want to be at Project Scrooge but she has no choice. She’s got to be there.
“What did this crap job ever do for me?
Nothing.
It was just a job. A job that—if I was lucky, right?—I was probably going to be doing for decades, if not centuries. Over and over again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’d figured out a long time ago that Project Scrooge was my own personal version of hell,” shows just HOW much Holly HATES working at Project Scrooge in the beginning. Does this change by the end? Does something or someone make her reflect and think differently? You’ll need to read to find out!
The plot really doesn’t start until a new recruit comes to Project Scrooge, Stephanie. It’s Holly’s job, Boz tells her to show Stephanie the ropes of how the company works.
“Well, Dorrit,” he said awkwardly, avoiding my questioning stare, “it’s Havisham’s job—not Havisham herself—that’s famous. Holly’s only been with us a short while.”
Oh, thanks, Boz, I thought. Thank you so much.
“What’s it been now, Holly? Four years,” he asked.
“Five.”
“Yes, that’s right. Five.”
“Wow,” the girl said again. “Five years as the Ghost of Christmas Past. That’s so—wow.”
I didn’t know how many more wows I could take.
“I’ve wanted to meet the Ghost of Christmas Past ever since I found out about this project,” the girl said.”
Boz has this REALLY annoying habit of calling his employees Dickens’ characters. Holly is Havisham, based on Lady Havisham in “Great Expectations,” and Stephanie is Dorrit, based on Little Dorrit from “Little Dorrit” while other minor characters are Blackpool, the Ghost of Christmas Future, based on Stephen Blackpool in “Hard Times,” and Dave, the Ghost of Christmas Present, is based on the title character from “David Copperfield.” Some might find this cute but for me it was just annoying, as I said. This was another reason that i couldn’t warm to Boz as a character. I did, however, like Stephanie! She was harmless and came across as a sweet and funny girl. She’s totally overwhelmed to meet Holly, the Ghost of Christmas Past, above. There’s a reveal towards the end about Stephanie that I don’t want to spoil but it shocked me!
The part of the novel that I enjoyed the most was definitely the romance, of course, between Holly and Ethan, she boy she’s meant to be saving from becoming a Scrooge. I love my forbidden romances, as you know if you’ve been around here long enough and this was no exception! I thought the romance was cute and perfect for the holiday season. Ethan starts off as a brat, just as Holly did but through each other they find solace and a way to improve who they were. Ethan can’t know Holly’s real name, because the people at Project Scrooge can’t know about their relationship and they literally have eyes everywhere, so Holly makes up the name, Victoria Scott and uses that when speaking to him.
Ethan’s Grandfather, Ethan Senior isn’t supportive of his family, Holly learns.
“Don’t let them make you soft,” Ethan Senior said softly. “It ruined your father, and it will ruin you, too. And never pass up an opportunity to gain an asset.” This is Ethan Seniors attitude towards the youngest Ethan’s family. He thinks they made his father, the middle Ethan soft, when he is just kind! Ethan loses his father at the beginning of the novel in an accident because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, Ethan Senior is also a Scrooge! He’s also dangerous towards Ethan in that he wants Ethan to become like him. Does he get his wish or is Holly able to save him? You’ll need to read to find out! Another thing that I won’t reveal happens between Holly and Ethan. It’s not really seen in YA fiction, I don’t think. I will say that it was refreshing, if a little disappointing.
Holly has a best friend Ro, before she dies. She sees Ro when she’s dead, but of course Ro can’t see her. Holly considers everything she’s done and said to Ro in the past and thinks what a horrible friend she was. Can Ro give her a second chance in life or death? You’ll need to read to find out! This is the friendship point I was alluding to above in the Readathons section.
Overall then, I enjoyed “The Afterlife of Holly Chase” more than I thought I would. It’s still very YA but it had the morals of an adult novel, I thought. I really enjoyed the romance between Holly and Ethan but I think my favourite part of this novel was seeing Holly overcome her bratty, and selfish personality with the help of Ethan and Stephanie as well as Dave, and her dad too. I wish the novel had ended slightly differently but I’m glad that we got to see Holly become a better person throughout and learn from her mistakes. Does she overcome everything or is there something that she wants but can’t have at the end of the novel? You’ll need to read to find out! All of the above is why I’m giving “The Afterlife of Holly Chase” 4 Stars!
Will you pick up “The Afterlife Of Holly Chase” or have you already read it. Let me know below.
Happy Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!!
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