Life After Theft
by Aprilynne Pike
Published: April 1, 2013
Genres: Retelling, Supernatural, Young Adult
Format: eBook (352 pages)
Source: Purchased
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."
Clash meets sass in this uproarious modern-day retelling of Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Without it saying so in the summary that Life After Theft was a retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel, I would have never known. It was a very loose retelling since instead of saving people’s life, the main character Jeff is returning people’s stuff. The setting did a great job of being updated and contemporary, but I didn’t think this was a great retelling. The stickers with red flowers on them that Jeff put on the stuff he was returning was really the only tie-in to The Scarlet Pimpernel that I could see. It was more like Mean Girls meets the 1990’s film Ghost Dad that starred Bill Cosby (yes I watched that show all the time as a kid). I compare it to Mean Girls because these girls in the book were awful to each. Just awful. And the reason when we finally find out didn’t really justify to mean the extreme hate these girls had. I can’t even remember what it was.
The voice of the main character Jeff was very well written and fun to read. He was snarky and funny. The plot was a little bland and didn’t move along that fast, but the characters were interesting enough that it kept me turning the pages. I was also curious about why these girls seemed to hate each other so much and that kept me reading as well even though I didn’t really like the reason when I found out.
Overall, it was a quick, fun read with interesting characters but not that great as a retelling.
Content Rating: Medium, for swearing, crude language, teen sex (that fades to black), and teen drinking. It was actually quite a lot of content and it bothered me a little.
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About Aprilynne Pike
Aprilynne Pike is the critically acclaimed, internationally and #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Wings series. She has been spinning 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. Since then she has worked as a waitress, a restaurant manager, a slush-pile reader, an editor, a childbirth educator, and a doula.
When not writing, Aprilynne can usually be found out running; she also enjoys singing, acting, and (of course!) reading books about magic and kissing. Aprilynne lives in Arizona with her husband and four kids; she is enjoying the sunshine.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
There seem to be a ton of retellings of The Scarlet Pimpernel right now. I didn’t realize that this story was so popular!
I agree, Life After Left is barely a retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel at all. I was disappointed about that, because I love that story. I did find this book fun, but not amazing.