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Welcome to the Elsewhere Express, your one stop destination to an eternity of peace and whimsical joy! Leave all your worries behind you and embark on a new journey towards a life of bliss and infinite possibilities.
Everyone has a place here. Whether you wish to mend things with the essence of a song (sad songs are good for fixing leaks and hopeful ones for withered leaves), or discover what thoughts make the perfect ingredients for everyone’s favorite cocktails (rumor has it that it’s an extra dash of broken promises that makes the Sakura Surprise at the Lotus Lounge so delectable), there is a job for everyone. A purpose. A life. A reason to stay and a place where you will always belong.
Here, the only limit is the limit of what you can imagine. The possibilities are endless. All you have to do is let go of what you had and dream of all that could be.
“‘You can’t miss what you don’t remember. Besides, if our old lives were worth missing, then we wouldn’t have drifted away from them, would we?’”
Samantha Sotto Yambao’s newest novel, The Elsewhere Express, is a cozy fantasy story perfect for fans of Studio Ghibli. Within its pages, we follow Hiraya “Raya” Sia and Quentin “Q” Chen Phillips, Jr., as they are swept away by the Elsewhere Express, a magical train that picks up lost souls in their darkest and quietest hours, in the minutes their thoughts drift away and the seconds in which they finally slip through the cracks. It is here, within the cars of the Elsewhere Express, that they can finally find exactly what they are missing: a sense of peace and purpose.
That is, if they choose to let go of their excess baggage. Starting a new life means ending another, but when grief digs its claws into you, it is not so simple as just “letting it go,” no matter how hard you might want to. No matter how hard you try.
“‘What could be more real than our thoughts? You and I have built our whole lives on them. They’ve set our limits and direction. They drove you to the edge of a train platform and convinced me to carry around a dead dream. You and I were trapped long before we ever set foot in the Missed and Misplaced Department.’”
When a mysterious stowaway threatens the safety of the Elsewhere Express during their orientation, Raya and Q must work together to track the stowaway down and stop it if they are to have their chance at the life of bliss and wonder they have been offered. But when something is built on thoughts and dreams, secrets are bound to be about, and some are more dangerous than others.
As Raya and Q race against time, it is not only the consequences of what will happen if they fail that haunt their steps, but also what they will have to sacrifice to stay if they succeed.
All aboard the Elsewhere Express
“‘The Elsewhere Express doesn’t pick up passengers at stations.’ Lily repeated a script that lived on her tongue. ‘You boarded it at the end of all your dreams at a quarter past your heaviest sigh. The train caught you when you floated away.’”
The Elsewhere Express focuses on two characters Raya and Q, two people who have lost their purpose in life.
Raya had been born a desperate wish to save a brother she did not yet know. A sick brother, who needed a perfect, genetically matched bone marrow donor to survive his blood disorder, thalassemia major. Raya was that match, and an answer to her parents’ prayers. But she could only save Jace for so long. Once he was gone, so was her purpose. Her dreams of becoming a songwriter meant nothing if she already failed at what she was meant to do, but there was one last thing she could do for Jace. Live his dream. Become a doctor, just as he had always wanted to, and maybe she could cling on to him just a little bit longer.
“Live. Breathe. Be.”
While Q’s story is different, he is also familiar with loss, albeit of a different kind. Q is an artist, one who started off painting moths across the walls of his school to the portraits he is now famous for. Portraits that reveal the soul and bare every secret his clients have tried so desperately to hide. But his time is almost at its end. By the time The Elsewhere Express starts, Q is almost fully blind from the degenerative eye disease that had been shrinking his eyesight for years. He prepares his last piece for the auction of his final works, with nothing left to give.
And aboard the Elsewhere Express they go! A place where they can finally find the peace of mind that has eluded them over and over again, under one condition: they leave behind all their negative emotions. Fear, anger, loss, grief, guilt. All of it. And while Q is happy to let go of the life he once had, Raya wants nothing more than to go home. But, is that so hard to understand when the Elsewhere Express has given Q his sight back but Raya seemingly nothing?
“‘That isn’t Jace, Raya. It can’t be.’
‘Why the hell not, Q? The Elsewhere Express breaks every natural law. Why not the laws of death? You got your miracle. Why can’t I have mine?’”
Both Raya and Q are intimate friends with loss, though they each have a different relationship with it. For Q, the Elsewhere Express truly is his salvation. At his darkest hour, when he was truly willing to end it all, the Elsewhere Express gave him the one thing that could truly save him: his sight. It is easy for him to leave his past behind him and embrace all the Elsewhere Express has to offer. While Raya also has a chance to escape her grief, it is not so easy for her to leave her old life behind. Instead, she clings to it. The memory of Jace. The guilt she feels for her part in his death. His dead dream that she has kept alive by making it her own. It is interesting to see these two characters traverse this world together, who both have every reason to let go and melt into the tranquility of life on the Elsewhere Express, and while one accepts it, the other cannot.
But there are more things to learn aboard the Elsewhere Express than how to master your grief.
“‘Like I told you, I’m beginning to think the train cars are designed to help us find our way. The Painting and Maintenance Department gave us a glimpse of what was possible if we mastered our thoughts. The Dragonfly taught us how to traverse worries and grudges. The Archive’s map showed us how much weight we could carry if we shared it.’”
Even if Raya cannot learn how to let go, or decide not to, the Elsewhere Express has plenty of things to show her and maybe even a secret or two to share.
The passenger’s handbook
Samantha Sotto Yambao is a master of the whimsical. The whole story is a journey we are meant to experience with the characters. From their lives before, to their first moments on the Elsewhere Express, through every moment spent discovering all the beautiful ways thoughts create the world around them (even the negative ones), to chasing after the stowaway that threatens to ruin it all, Yambao has perfectly crafted her book to mirror the story it holds. The book itself is a manual of sorts to help the reader traverse the Elsewhere Express along with Raya and Q, each chapter a guide to answer all the possible questions we could have as we get deeper into the plot.
I loved how unique the layout of each chapter is, especially in a day and age where a lot of authors aren’t even titling their chapters anymore. I will never forget the joy of reading The Lightning Thief and coming across the chapter titled “I Became Supreme Lord of the Bathroom.” While it didn’t necessarily do anything to help tell the overall story, it certainly impacted my reading experience. Like, how could I not be excited to read a chapter called “I Became Supreme Lord of the Bathroom?” How could I put the book down now when I needed to know what on earth could possibly be happening next?
While I have drifted a little off topic in terms of The Elsewhere Express, my point is that chapter titles and short excerpts of lore are an amazing way to not only immerse readers into the tone of the story, but to also give readers information about the world in a way that doesn’t feel like a big lore dump. Another example of this is Brandon Sanderson, who does this exceptionally well in his Mistborn series. While the chapters don’t have names, each one begins with a short excerpt through which we learn bits and pieces about what happened before the start of the series.
Yambao really hits the mark here. Because The Elsewhere Express is a low stakes, whimsical fantasy story, there isn’t as much lore to drop like a series such as Mistborn, but she still uses every little bit of the book to her advantage in order to really pull you into it. We are learning how the train works alongside Raya and Q, so to set up the book like a passenger handbook and each chapter be an answer to a “frequently asked question” is absolutely perfect. Not only does it give you a little taste of what’s to come to pull you into the next chapter, but it helps emphasize the tone of the world within The Elsewhere Express.
A study of grief
“A passenger, Raya thought, would have to try very hard to be unhappy in a place that provided you with every comfort. The only thing the train lacked was a true sense of time, which was only a problem if you were counting on it to heal your wounds.”
I first introduced The Elsewhere Express as a book perfect for fans of Studio Ghibli. Just as Princess Mononoke is a fantastical story that deals with the negative impact of humans on nature, just as Grave of Fireflies highlights the warmth of human connection while its characters struggle to survive the impact of World War II, and just as Howl’s Moving Castle, within its deeply whimsical world of walking castles, witches, and fire demons, tells the story about a journey of self-acceptance and loving people for all their imperfections, The Elsewhere Express, beneath all of its magic and wonders, is a story about grief.
But in a story where one character clings to her grief and the other is willing to cast it aside for a new life, what is the right answer?
While the rules of the train push its passengers to get rid of their excess baggage in order to find their place within it, The Elsewhere Express asks us to think about the importance of grief in our lives. How does loss mold us into the people we are? How does guilt shape our actions or how does sorrow affect our appreciation for happier days? Can you truly be at peace without the presence of negative emotions?
“‘The Elsewhere Express gives us everything we want, but not the one thing we need to appreciate all that we have,’ Dev said.
‘Absence,’ Raya said quietly.
Dev nodded. ‘We never stop. We never mourn. We never look back. Manon’s perfume is the gift of goodbye.’”
Even the train’s passengers, after years within its everlasting peace, come to crave what they have given up for a better life: absence, loss, and grief. Something as simple as a goodbye. So I wonder, would Q truly appreciate the Elsewhere Express without the memory of his loss? Would the gift of his eyesight still feel like a miracle if he no longer knew what it was like to be blind? To lose everything he is to something he cannot stop?
Without time to heal your wounds, without absence to help you appreciate all that you have, is the Elsewhere Express really helping its passengers?
“This may be the most wondrous train ever built, but it never truly moves forward. We are no closer to where we’re going nor farther from where we left. The Elsewhere Express traps us in thoughts the same way we were trapped in our heads before we boarded it. Nothing has changed.”
While everyone’s relationship with grief is different and there is no one, single grieving process, The Elsewhere Express argues that while it may seem easier to just forget all the bad things that have happened to us, life isn’t that simple. Even the train itself cannot run without negative emotions. Sadness fixes leaks and grudges build bridges. And while doubt creates cracks and guilt can summon darkness, there is a purpose even within the things that destroy.
Sometimes people just need time (perhaps a few lifetimes of it) and a dream (even if it’s not the one you began with) to keep them going.
My final thoughts
I gave The Elsewhere Express a rating of 3.5/5 stars.
While I think this is a beautifully written book and contains a very interesting study on how grief impacts people, I often find myself struggling with cozy fantasies. So this is absolutely a “me” problem and not a “quality of book” problem. I tend to find the pacing of cozy fantasy books like this a little fast and for the solutions to problems to come too easily, but that is just my personal taste, particularly in fantasy books.
I did enjoy Yambao’s previous book Water Moon much more (which I rated 5/5 stars and you can find my review here), which I argue is actually very similar in terms of whimsicality and pacing, so maybe I just liked the plot of Water Moon more. Regardless, I highly recommend The Elsewhere Express to anyone who enjoys Ghibli-esque fantasy books or books that are character driven.
Thank you to Del Ray for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
