'After I Killed Myself' is a novel about a high school girl who has been tormented for years by teenage cruelty. Finally, after several months of heavy depression, Molly kills herself. Rather than disappearing, she ends up being forced to watch everybody's lives continue- throughout the novel you see her enemy's perspectives as well as Molly's past. At the very end of this post there is the novel spoiler. But the question is, does this seem like a legitimate novel? And are there any other stories with incredibly similar plots?
'Back Cover':
Molly Rylan always wondered what people’s lives would be like without her present- how they’d continue to function with an entire unawareness or rather care of her absence. How the girls who made Molly’s life hell would secretly blossom and flourish in excitement over her death. The mending of her family that would occur in a mere week or so, and how in truth, nobody would really miss her to begin with.
Never did she imagine she’d get to experience it in the afterlife.
After three solid years of misery and watching high school life function jubilantly from an outsider’s view, Molly swallows a handful of pills. She wasn’t expecting heaven or hell- she wasn’t expecting anything- and ends up back at her old high school, realistically as invisible as she’d felt before death.
Now Molly watches her peers function; her long-time crush, her few good friends, and the one girl who made Molly’s life unlivable.
Prologue:
I knew it would hurt; I didn’t know how much.
It was eleven thirteen when I checked the tiny white letters on the corner of my computer screen. Damn. I always missed eleven eleven. Not that it could have helped me much; I was beyond help.
The pills were supposed to be for insomniacs, the serious kind- the kind who couldn’t sleep for days. I’d stolen them from Hayden Gray’s backpack, the slightly nerdy boy who sat a few rows in front of me in fifth period. He’d forgotten it after leaving for sixth, and though there were a few other kids still in class, I’d quietly managed to slip the pills into my pocket.
Nobody noticed me.
Ever.
Nobody had been able to tell the droop in the way I walked, the limp in my stance, or the lack of enthusiasm involving anything. Not for three long years.
Now, with pills in hand, a door locked, and missing the supposed most special time of night for the eighty-fourth consecutive interval (yes, I did count), there was nothing stopping me. So, with a can of Sprite on my desk (might as well end life with something tasty), and exactly thirty-one pills in my palm, I chugged.
I chugged and chugged and chugged, then shut down my computer, and turned off my light.
And didn’t ever wake up.
It wasn’t until it was too late that the real pain started to erupt; it was as though somebody had taken an ice-cold blade to my stomach, now twirling my insides the way kids spin the wheel in a teacup ride. Then, jolt after jolt, random painful sparks lit up my system. I couldn’t do anything to stop it; my body was no longer mine. Though I was still present, with the pain occurring, the switch that told my mind to get up and puke out the pills wasn’t there anymore.
It must’ve been scrambling around, trying to save me in a million different ways.
By eleven forty-one, I was dead.
*
*
*
SPOILER:
Molly talks vaguely throughout the novel about how there used to be a small voice in her head that told her not to kill herself, and after death she meets a boy named Blue. Her and Blue do not become anything more than friends, and he fades in and out of the book, occasionally listening to her problems and giving her advice. She feels as though she's known him, but she's never met him before. Towards the very end of the novel, Molly realizes that her long-time crush who she'd rarely talked to, had been in love with her too. She also discovers exactly how much her family does miss her, and the deep remorse and self-issues the girl who tortured Molly had as well. Molly wants nothing more than to be alive again- but can't ever. Blue then tells her she can be a conscience to somebody else wanting to kill themselves, now that she knows how painful it is. He then reveals to her that he was her conscience, and how much he'd wish she'd listened. The book ends sadly; Molly becomes a conscience of a new boy and Blue goes off to the next level of the afterlife, leaving Molly forever. Molly also enters the minds of the characters she's followed, and confesses to them all her deep regret and new understanding of life.
'Back Cover':
Molly Rylan always wondered what people’s lives would be like without her present- how they’d continue to function with an entire unawareness or rather care of her absence. How the girls who made Molly’s life hell would secretly blossom and flourish in excitement over her death. The mending of her family that would occur in a mere week or so, and how in truth, nobody would really miss her to begin with.
Never did she imagine she’d get to experience it in the afterlife.
After three solid years of misery and watching high school life function jubilantly from an outsider’s view, Molly swallows a handful of pills. She wasn’t expecting heaven or hell- she wasn’t expecting anything- and ends up back at her old high school, realistically as invisible as she’d felt before death.
Now Molly watches her peers function; her long-time crush, her few good friends, and the one girl who made Molly’s life unlivable.
Prologue:
I knew it would hurt; I didn’t know how much.
It was eleven thirteen when I checked the tiny white letters on the corner of my computer screen. Damn. I always missed eleven eleven. Not that it could have helped me much; I was beyond help.
The pills were supposed to be for insomniacs, the serious kind- the kind who couldn’t sleep for days. I’d stolen them from Hayden Gray’s backpack, the slightly nerdy boy who sat a few rows in front of me in fifth period. He’d forgotten it after leaving for sixth, and though there were a few other kids still in class, I’d quietly managed to slip the pills into my pocket.
Nobody noticed me.
Ever.
Nobody had been able to tell the droop in the way I walked, the limp in my stance, or the lack of enthusiasm involving anything. Not for three long years.
Now, with pills in hand, a door locked, and missing the supposed most special time of night for the eighty-fourth consecutive interval (yes, I did count), there was nothing stopping me. So, with a can of Sprite on my desk (might as well end life with something tasty), and exactly thirty-one pills in my palm, I chugged.
I chugged and chugged and chugged, then shut down my computer, and turned off my light.
And didn’t ever wake up.
It wasn’t until it was too late that the real pain started to erupt; it was as though somebody had taken an ice-cold blade to my stomach, now twirling my insides the way kids spin the wheel in a teacup ride. Then, jolt after jolt, random painful sparks lit up my system. I couldn’t do anything to stop it; my body was no longer mine. Though I was still present, with the pain occurring, the switch that told my mind to get up and puke out the pills wasn’t there anymore.
It must’ve been scrambling around, trying to save me in a million different ways.
By eleven forty-one, I was dead.
*
*
*
SPOILER:
Molly talks vaguely throughout the novel about how there used to be a small voice in her head that told her not to kill herself, and after death she meets a boy named Blue. Her and Blue do not become anything more than friends, and he fades in and out of the book, occasionally listening to her problems and giving her advice. She feels as though she's known him, but she's never met him before. Towards the very end of the novel, Molly realizes that her long-time crush who she'd rarely talked to, had been in love with her too. She also discovers exactly how much her family does miss her, and the deep remorse and self-issues the girl who tortured Molly had as well. Molly wants nothing more than to be alive again- but can't ever. Blue then tells her she can be a conscience to somebody else wanting to kill themselves, now that she knows how painful it is. He then reveals to her that he was her conscience, and how much he'd wish she'd listened. The book ends sadly; Molly becomes a conscience of a new boy and Blue goes off to the next level of the afterlife, leaving Molly forever. Molly also enters the minds of the characters she's followed, and confesses to them all her deep regret and new understanding of life.