Post edited 1:24 am – December 9, 2009 by TruthinBooks

If you liked The Lovely Bones or The Shack, you should really check out Gita Nazareth's Forgiving Ararat. This book too explores the interconnections between the world of the living and the world of the dead. 

We meet Brek Cuttler immediately after her death, sitting in a deserted train station that we later learn is the heart of Nazareth's imagined afterlife world of Shemaya. As she is initiated into the world of death, she finds herself at her beloved great-grandmother Nana's house and with a new job at the train station. As she was a lawyer in life, in death she is asked to be a presenter, or lawyer, for those getting ready to stand trial before God for the Final Judgment. From here she is caught up in an unfolding drama of history and the consequences of human choice that eventually, in an unforgettable climax, leads her face to face with her killer.

Shemaya is a world that alights on our greatest hopes for our future beyond death, yet at the same time is rooted in prominent vestiges of the human condition. Beyond Nazareth's perfectly crafted reimagining of what life after death might be like, what makes Shemaya so utterly engaging is where it allows us to go. While it is grounded in real-life lessons about the guilts and tensions that stay with us and our descendents long after a traumatic event has passed, it also gives us a unique portal through which to explore broader basic human themes about the pursuit of justice and the embracing of love as we experience them in our world today.

This book is an enlightening exploration on what happens to us when we die and how we should remember to live. It's a fascinating must-read for 2010. As both a fan and a publicist for this book, I'm really curious to hear other people's reactions to it.