Daisy Cooper's Rules for Living

January 15, 2020
On a routine evening milk run, 23-year-old Londoner Daisy Cooper slips on the icy pavement, hits her head, and dies. When Daisy follows the light, she wakes up in an office space that is more clinical than heavenly. There she meets Death, personified by a handsome man with mesmerizing green eyes and some bad news--there has been a clerical error. Daisy was not meant to die until the ripe old age of 92. Now stuck in limbo until further notice, Daisy kills time by taking on a job as Death's assistant--where she is both a help and a hindrance--and spying on her boyfriend, Eric, and best friend, Violet, who is struggling with a resurgence in clinical depression following Daisy's departure. As Daisy and Death process souls, including a murdered woman and plane crash victims, they form a special connection through exploring loss and its inescapable afteraffects--not only on the dead and those they leave behind, but on Death himself. These moments are obviously crafted to make the reader ruminate on their own mortality, but what could be emotionally manipulative or schmaltzy is surprisingly affecting in Keily's hands. With the intriguing mystery of Daisy's is-she-isn't-she death, witty dialogue, and romantic tension, Keily hits all the right notes. But the book loses steam in the second half, becoming muddled by several drawn-out plot points and unnecessary scenes that do little to move the story forward. Is Daisy truly dead, or will she find a way to return to the living? Is Violet on her way to suffering a tragic setback? By Daisy's third ill-advised attempt to reappear to her traumatized family and friends, it's hard to keep caring either way. A promising debut that gets bogged down by poor pacing and a too-neat ending.

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January 1, 2020
Daisy Cooper didn't mean to die. No, really?she wasn't meant to die. But an error in the afterlife has Daisy going from merely falling on ice and suffering a concussion to well, falling on ice and dying. To top it all off, because Daisy's death occurred ahead of its scheduled time, she's now stuck in limbo, prevented from fully passing on while Death sorts out the mistake. In the meantime, Death takes Daisy on as his assistant, because, well, collecting the life force of the dying is a lot for one entity. Working together, Daisy finds that Death isn't the Grim Reaper she believed him to be?he wears Converse sneakers and has dimples. However, Daisy still feels the draw of home and those she left behind. Death finds a way for Daisy to return, but the magnitude of it may be more than she or her loved ones can handle. Keily's debut is a witty and clever look at life, love, and grief, and readers will eagerly await what she has in store next.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)