Scott Westerfeld's Afterworlds is difficult to explain, except to say it's a book about a book.

The main storyline revolves around Darcy Patel, an eighteen year old who, after writing a novel, accepts a publishing deal, a massive pay cheque and moves to New York to pursue her writing career. In the other narrative, we get to read Darcy's finished novel.

Titled Afterworlds, Darcy's novel is YA paranormal romance which tells the story of Lizzie Scofield, who, after a witnessing a terrorist attack, accidently wills her consciousness into the afterworld. Here Lizzie meets, Yamaraj, a mysterious and handsome psychopomp, who helps her to understand what has happened and how to control her new powers.

Afterworlds alternates between Darcy and Lizzie with each storyline complementing the other. As Darcy grows as a person and as a writer, so too does the Afterworlds universe evolve.

Afterworlds takes a slightly satirical look at the world of YA writing and publishing with Westerfeld often poking fun at his own storyline. An example of this is Darcy fretting over the moral consequences of borrowing the idea for Yamaraj from her Hindu religion and "using him for the purposes of YA hotness". Darcy claims her novel is new and different from other paranormal romances, while at the same time, it includes all the clichés of its genre and poor character construction.

Unfortunately, the alternating narrative of Afterworlds didn't quite work for me. Knowing that Lizzie's world was all part of Darcy's imagination made it difficult to become immersed in her storyline. As a fan of fantasy and paranormal novels, I would have liked to have seen Lizzie's story further developed, however, I understand that Darcy is the main protagonist.

Afterworlds gives a look into the pressures of publishing and the critical eye of readers, something we don't often think about while reading. Overall, a well crafted and entertaining book.

Two worlds collide in Scott Westerfield’s unique new novel ‘Afterworlds’. With gripping action and potent young adult romance it serves to be a truly mixed bag.

The story follows Darcy Patel after she sells her first book, Afterworlds, to a publishing company and as she struggles through the problematic experience of growing up. Darcy’s storyline is intertwined with that of Lizzy (The protagonist in Darcy’s novel), who discovers paranormal powers under extreme circumstances, resulting in her meeting the ‘man of her dreams’. Queue YA romance!

Overall, I enjoyed Afterworlds and I fealt satisfied by the end of the 600 page journey, but the book isn’t without its flaws. As expected from a large book some parts of the novel were quite dull – especially the romantic aspects of both stories – But I’m not the biggest fan of romance so many people may enjoy these sections more. I did, though, appreciate the action and horror elements of the story; the parts that make you really turn the pages. The moral implications of Lizzy’s acts is also quite interesting, as well as the way in which Darcy’s experiences can effect Lizzy’s world. In the end, Westerfield has constructed a strong piece of YA fiction that is truly individual and interesting.

Whilst like most I found the concept intriguing, I personally felt it was a let down and frankly quite messy and confusing. I did enjoy parts of the books and boy did I get into it the first chapter, yet this is a 600 pages and did have lulls that one usually finds in long books.

It is told in alternating chapters from the perspective of Darcy who is writing Afterworlds and Lizzie the protagonist of Afterworlds. The stories wove together quite well and I found strong correlations between the two, such as a climax in Darcy's world followed with a climax in Lizzie's. I definitely commend Scott Westerfeld for writing a story like Afterworlds, as about half way through I realised how weird and unique Lizzie's story was. I think that having Darcy's chapters set in New York grounded the book, as it might be too far out there without something the reader can relate to and is interested in. Darcy's chapters give the reader some insight into the book and the choices for different scenes, the ending and characters which all give Afterworlds an authenticity in quite an unrealistic world.

The points that I enjoyed were often overridden by the points that bothered me. Beware there is instalove. I feel as if Scott Westerfeld was trying to cram in religion, homosexuality, death and family all in these coming of age stories. Granted I understand that a young adult would have to deal with these issues but it got messy and confusing.

Often when I review a book I have to ask whether the author did things on purpose. I don't know if Westerfeld was making the story messy because it was supposed to be, due to it being Darcy's first novel and her writing it in a month. The story is critiqued even in the book and a character even says that writing your first novel is amazing and wonderful, but a kind of panic underlies it, a sense of not knowing what you are doing. I wondered when finishing, what if this was the message throughout the book. That it was to inspire readers to become writers, even if their first novel is messy.

I have not read Scott Westerfeld's other books that are highly acclaimed, and feel that generally if you have read his other work that you may like this better than I did. It is extremely unique and compelling and I appreciate how immersed I was in this book at times, as I felt part of the story.