Review: Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live

Title: Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live

Author: Sacha Lamb

Genre: Contemporary with Supernatural elements

Trigger Warnings: Misgendering (mention), deadnaming (mention), bullying, depression, suicidal ideation

Back Cover:

Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live

Avi comes across these foreboding words scrawled on the bathroom mirror, but what do they mean? Is this a curse, a prediction, or a threat from Avi’s emboldened bullies? And how to they know his real name when he hasn’t even told his mother yet?

Then there is Ian—the cool new guy at school, who is suddenly paying attention to Avi. Ian is just like Avi, but he is also all sunshine, optimism, and magic. All the things that Avi doesn’t know how to deal with…yet.

Review:

I know I just posted about a Sacha Lamb story yesterday, but I think I’ve found a new favorite author. I’m not even into contemporary stories that much but everything Sacha Lamb writes is just so good!

This is a novella, so it’s pretty short, but it still manages to draw a wonderful set of dynamic and real characters. Avi is a closeted Jewish trans guy relentlessly bullied at school, depressed, and very much alone. It doesn’t even bother him that he supposedly has only six months to live because he’s not sure how much he wants to keep living anyway. Ian is also a trans guy, but personality-wise the exact opposite of Avi – he’s happy, optimistic, and pulls Avi into his orbit of light and joy and his happy and accepting and magical family. It’s a story about Avi’s relationship with Ian and its ups and downs and it’s affects on his life, and you know, if it takes literal magic to give Avi a happy ending then I’ll accept it.

Despite there being literal magic in this book, it definitely had a more contemporary feel. This is first and foremost a story about Avi healing, and secondly a story about a very sweet relationship. The magic is just icing on the cake. It’s not a story about a relationship fixing someone, but it’s about how much having a support system and people who love and care about and accept you can help.

This is just such a sweet story. Avi is deep in depression but Ian is just so full of hope that it rubs off everywhere. And did I mention the happy ending? It gets dark at times but I love this story so much.

And the whole novella is available online for free here!

Review: The Afterlife of Abdul

Title: The Afterlife of Abdul

Series: Azrael #1

Author: Ayse Hafiza

Genre: Supernatural

Trigger Warnings: Death, death of child, mild gore/body horror, car crash, drunk driving

Back Cover:

Abdul kills himself and Jenny… he didn’t mean to.

Their deaths were the result of a car crash. He had been rushing to meet his date. His motorbike collided with her Mum’s red car and Jenny a little six year old girl died. He didn’t know she was there. It was an accident.

Their souls meet in the space between their immediate deaths and the start of their afterlives.

Imagine dying and meeting Azrael, the Angel of Death. What happens in that place? What happens when you are forced to submit to your death?

Review:

You’d be forgiven for thinking a story titled “The Afterlife of Abdul” is about Abdul’s afterlife. You’d be wrong, but you’d be forgiven.

I got this free on Amazon, and I knew it was a short story going into it. I was pretty excited about it, actually, because the author is Muslim and I was interested to hear a Muslim perspective on heaven/the afterlife.

That’s not what’s here, though. Not at all.

It starts out strong. The first chapter is about Abdul – it sets up a conflict between him not being as good a Muslim as he could be but desiring to be better, and the way the girl he’s dating seems to be Muslim in name only and he likes her but is afraid she’s pulling him away from God. This is all set up through internal monologue as he drives his motorcycle through the rain, and gave me a really solid connection to this character. The chapter ends with him colliding with a car (part of the problem was that he was speeding, but part of it was the car had its lights off and he didn’t see it) and dying.

Then the second chapter from Jenny’s perspective and her experience with dying in the car crash and going to heaven. I didn’t really care about Jenny all that much – her chapter is much shorter and focuses on her death only – but I accepted it because the back cover played up her as important and maybe this is important to Abdul’s story. (Bear in mind that at this point, Abdul has been solidly cemented as the main character in my mind.)

Chapter three is from Jenny’s mom’s perspective. I don’t think the author was trying to play her off as unlikeable, but she very much was. She pretty much ticked every box on the “independent and b*tchy” stereotype checklist. She was also driving drunk, which is why her lights were off and Abdul didn’t see her car. So though the back cover tried to play it off as entirely Abdul’s fault Jenny died, I think it’s at least 50% Jenny’s mom’s fault. This character also gets a lot of backstory, which is why I think the author was trying to make her sympathetic and just failed.

Chapter four was super short and from the perspective of Azrael, the angel of death.

And that’s it. There’s four chapters. The focus is on the deaths and the moments after, no actual afterlives involved. And the point-of-view characters get progressively less likeable/enjoyable as the story goes on. Mostly I’m just disappointed that I didn’t get what I was promised – a story about Abdul’s experience in the afterlife. The first chapter was stellar, and if it had continued with Abdul and not a disjointed series of other characters, I’d be chomping at the bit for book two, not delivering a verdict of “very disappointing.”

The Azrael Series:

1. The Afterlife of Abdul
2. King Solomon and the Cat
3. Mr. Time