Book Review: The Waiting Room, by Alysha Kaye

The book title: “The Waiting Room”

The author: Alysha Kaye

The release date: July 1st, 2014

Paperback: http://amzn.com/1500307041

Kinlde edition: http://amzn.com/B00LDDXNC0

The author’s website and blog:

http://alyshakaye.com/

http://alyshakaye.wordpress.com/

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Self-introduction by the author:

Alysha Kaye was born in San Marcos, TX, where she also received her BA in Creative Writing from Texas State University. She worked in marketing for a brief and terrible cubicle-soul-sucking time until she was accepted into Teach for America and promptly moved to Oahu. She taught 7th grade English in Aiea for two years and also received her Masters in Education from University of Hawaii. She now teaches in Austin, TX and tries to squeeze in as much writing as possible between lesson planning. She dreamt about The Waiting Room once, and offhandedly wrote her boyfriend a love poem about waiting for him after death. Somehow, that became a novel.

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Summary of “The Waiting Room” by the author:

Jude and Nina are the epitome of that whole raw, unflinching love thing that most people are jealous of. That is, until Jude dies and wakes up in The Waiting Room, surrounded by other souls who are all waiting to pass over into their next life. But unlike those souls, Jude’s name is never called by the mysterious “receptionist”. He waits, watching Nina out of giant windows. He’s waiting for her. What is this place? How long will he wait? And what will happen when and if Nina does join him? The Waiting Room is a story of not just love, but of faith, predestination, and philosophy, friendship and self-actualization, of waiting.

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It’s my second time to review a soon-to-be-published book through reading it as an Advanced Reader Copy. I came across the author, Alysha Kaye’s blog and found she was offering a copy of her debut novel “The Waiting Room” for a review. Yeah, I was kind of greedy for a free book, I admit. But, I can honestly say I got so interested in her “Waiting Room” concept.

As a lifelong day-dreamer and a night-dreamer myself, and one of those who used be a child in Japan when like almost everyone was crazed about the occult, or almost everything kind of “occultish”, her book sounded quite natural to me.

I was just curious how she would deal with this theme, or what her dream about “the Waiting Room” was like. I vaguely remember that as a child I dreamed once about a big pajama party with our deceased relatives at school. I think it was around Obon season, when it is supposed the dead visit their living family’s house. And it was also during summer vacation season for school kids. I guess I just confused Obon rituals with a school camp event or something. But I remember in the dream I was looking forward to reuniting with my at-that-time recently-dead grandfather.

Now, did I enjoy her book? Definitely. It made me think about a lot of things about, again, a lot of things. It’s still giving me a lot of thinking. Have there been  anybody who hasn’t ever thought about their after-death? Or, after-life? Hasn’t every faith come from the same question? And then, the author’s handling of this theme is different from traditional, religious ways. But it’s still also about faith. I can’t assure you the book will give you the answer you want, but I sure do it will give you the courage to think about it yourself. I’ve been thinking what I would talk to those “receptionists” myself since I finished reading the book.