Review: Life After Theft - Aprilynne Pike

Title: Life after Theft
Author: Aprilynne Pike
Pub Date: April 30th, 2013
Publisher: HarperTeen
Page Count: 352

Moving to a new high school sucks. Especially a rich-kid private school. With uniforms. But nothing is worse than finding out the first girl you meet is dead. And a klepto.

No one can see or hear Kimberlee except Jeff, so--in hopes of bringing an end to the snarkiest haunting in history--he agrees to help her complete her "unfinished business." But when the enmity between Kimberlee and Jeff's new crush, Sera, manages to continue posthumously, Jeff wonders if he's made the right choice.

Clash meets sass in this uproarious modern-day retelling of Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Aprilynne Pike is an author whom I found some interesting stuff about. There are stories about how her husband (allegedly) bullied some reviewers who gave this book a bad review. Obviously, I wasn’t here when this happened and I can’t have a bias on the book based on that. I’m prepared to let everything go because there are bad people in the world and their personality shouldn’t reflect on the book alone. We’re not judging character, only literature.

Most books in YA involving 2 people who are different genders will involve a relationship between these two characters. Because this didn’t happen in this book, it gets bonus points (for originality).

This novel is about the stuck-up popular girl who needs to move on. But the only way she can do this is to return anything and everything she’s stolen from her classmates. And yes, she’s kind of a kleptomaniac. She’s found someone who can see her but he happens to be the complete opposite to her on the social scale. So obviously, they don’t get along.

This novel was... strange. Of course, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was actually a bit boring in some sense. There was close to no paranormal and it was more like Teen Fiction featuring Paranormal. I was expecting paranormal, like in Hereafter. Instead of that, it was just like that old movie “Teen Spirit”, except that movie is honestly a bit better because that dead girl is actually a bit more grateful than Kimberlee. Another name for this title could be “Stuck up girl and her Slave”.

MC Jeff is this “nerd-like” guy who is just so dumb and thinks with his hormones rather than brain. And then he’s paired with Kimberlee who’s the popular, stuck up, mean, rich and whiny girl. Tell me this is not a recipe for disaster. And if this isn’t enough, she treats him like dirt when he’s roped into helping her return everything. Total show of gratitude. Let’s just say that I have a very low tolerance for idiocy.

Anyway, it isn’t even just the characters that I have an issue with. The whole story was so confusing as it went on. In the start, I was like “okay, I’m following” and by the end, I’m like “wait, what was the big secret? What does Kimberlee know that she won’t tell anyone? What? Someone help me understand!” It just confused me so much because there were secrets Kimberlee was keeping and I felt like Pike didn’t have a very good way of exposing her ideas in a smooth way. Even now, I have no idea what actually went down between Kimberlee, Khail, his sister and the other people involved.

But besides “confusing”, it was also quite boring. I just couldn’t grasp the ideas and why they were so incredible for some people and just so terrible for me. I didn’t find a story in this novel. All i got was a spoiled girl needs someone to help her move on and she finally does. Whoop De Doop. There was also SO MUCH DRAMA that it made my head spin... In a not-so-good way.

One thing, I did like, however were the morals. In a way, I felt like this story had very good morals. It had a lot to do with the whole “fix your mistakes” kind of way. Only problem was the characters clashed so badly with the morals that the effect was sort of... gone?

The writing itself was actually tolerable and didn’t make me want to rip my eyes out. However, I felt like the dialogue was boring and had nothing I could really connect to. Or is that the characters?

None of the characters were remotely witty or even easy to get along with. I think that’s my no-tolerance for idiocy thing speaking again. Kimberlee was just too annoying for me and though I felt like Jeff could’ve been someone I’d like, he had to go on and on about how much he loved Serena. No.

I’m not even sure what this review is supposed to have because I can’t think of much to say. I didn’t hate it, which is why it had 2 stars, instead of one. I also didn’t like it. It wasn’t memorable and even if it was a book I hated, it would be memorable. (I can tell you all the details of Twilight... just saying.)

Of course, I’m the black sheep (or so I’ve seen), so go ahead and check this book out for yourself!

Aprilynne Pike has been spinning faerie stories since she was a child with a hyper-active imagination. At the age of twenty she received her BA in Creative Writing from Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. When not writing, Aprilynne can usually be found at the gym; she also enjoys singing, acting, reading, and working with pregnant moms as a childbirth educator and doula. Aprilynne currently lives with her husband and three kids in Utah, and dreams of warmer climates.

Aprilynne Pike's #1 New York Times best-selling debut, WINGS, is the first of four books about a seemingly ordinary girl with a not-so-ordinary destiny. In this tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever...

Aprilynne's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/aprilynnepike