The Afterlife of the Party, a sequel stuck in purgatory

Maybe I need a vacation, maybe. I ask myself that when an mglit book that I’m reading is challenging to get through. It’s a saying that I echo even more so when it’s the second book in a series to which I really enjoyed the first one. The Afterlife of the Party is an mglit book that I should have loved. Grounded For All Eternity is an mglit book that we really enjoyed. In theory, a sequel would’ve been one that resonated as quickly with us, but that wasn’t the case, and I’m not sure why.

It started with my wife, who started reading The Afterlife of the Party, but abandoned it after 90 or so pages. She said that it didn’t have the same zip and wasn’t as much fun as the first book. It’s not that I don’t believe my wife when she says things, all great spouses do believe them, but sometimes they just need to verify things.

Mal is the spawn of some devil folk and they all live in hell. In the first book he visited Earth-which was completely against protocol, made some friends (because he had a really cool costume), caused some mischief and made it safely back home. The Afterlife of the Party starts with Mal and his hell-bound friends eagerly awaiting a new resident. This is not purgatory, so they’re not a part-timer, it’s a new being to live there. It could be a Faerie, which would be very cool for the winged residents of hell to marvel at and learn from.

Here’s the thing about reading The Afterlife of the Party. While re-reading parts of certain chapters to reacquaint myself with specific details, I found myself enjoying parts of it more the second time I was reading it. This is indeed a quandary. It’s a book that barely held my attention for the first 80%, and then picked up to a nice, efficient ending.

But then, while finding those details, I found myself reading more and remembering why the book didn’t resonate with me the first time. There are just too many characters for starters. The first book in the series either had fewer characters or got out of the gate quicker. Actually, I think it’s a combination of the two that exacerbated my lack of patience for the sequel because I kept comparing it to the first one.

It also doesn’t help that the ‘interdimensional mixer’, the party that’s happening for all magical beings, doesn’t happen until that final 20%. This party is mentioned in the description for the book, yet it takes forever to get there. The lead-up to that feels like a big tease that takes entirely too long to get to the point. You’ll find yourself wondering if it really is happening. In Grounded for all Eternity, Mal gets to Earth, and spends the vast majority of the book in this fish-out-of-water scenario. Had Mal spent more time in heaven then the book could’ve had the same, refreshing feel as the first one.  

The Afterlife of the Party is an mglit book that hits that audience, but won’t engage younger or older readers who are looking for a good-book time. You can easily see active mglit readers, who are invested in the series, and want a dose of spiritual/demonic fiction, digging into the book. Granted, that’s a narrow audience, and those dedicated mglit fans will dig it, but for the masses, this’ll be a confusing trip that will leave them yearning for the first book.

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The Afterlife of the Party is by Darcy Marks and is available on Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.