Shireen Anne Jeejeebhoy’s The Soul’s Awakening is a surreal, unsettling, and emotionally provocative dive into what comes after death, at least according to one soul’s cosmic detour. We follow Charlotte Elisabeth, a reserved, chronically ill woman who chooses medically assisted death to escape her suffering. But instead of oblivion, she wakes up on the ceiling of her deathbed, hovering above her body. From there, she’s hurled through a series of metaphysical realms, Dark, Desire, Ignorance, Wrath, and more, each representing pieces of her own psyche and human experience. It’s one part metaphysical fantasy, one part psychological reckoning, with a healthy dose of spiritual allegory and raw existential dread.

The writing style is unapologetically internal, immersive, and sometimes disorienting, but in a deliberate way. Jeejeebhoy isn’t interested in linear storytelling or easing you into big ideas. Instead, she tosses you into the deep end from chapter one and then lets the reader sink or swim. The scene where Charlotte finds herself hovering over her dead body while the nurse and doctor argue casually over her corpse? That was chilling. And weirdly, darkly funny. The book constantly blurs the line between what’s tragic and what’s absurd, and that’s part of its power.

Charlotte’s loneliness, her desire for control, her fear of change, all of it felt so raw and real. And then the universe goes, “Cool, we’re going to personify every single flaw and emotion you’ve been repressing.” There’s a moment with “Desire,” this gelatinous being in an ice cream parlor, that felt so ridiculous and yet so uncomfortably honest about what we really want when we say we want “peace.” That scene sticks with you not because of how wild it is but because it hits a nerve. And then there’s “Ignorance,” a trio of sketchy, sarcastic hexagons with weird smells and bad attitudes, who offer Charlotte a pair of glasses to help her “unsee” the truth. It’s brilliant and brutal.

The book is dense and, at times, leans heavily into philosophical abstraction. There were moments when I had to stop and reorient myself, questioning the narrative’s direction or purpose. Yet, this disorientation feels intentional. The reader is drawn into the same bewildering emotional and existential currents that Charlotte navigates, lost, overwhelmed, yet inching toward clarity. Jeejeebhoy’s greatest strength lies in her ability to render internal chaos in a way that remains both comprehensible and, at times, strikingly lyrical. There is a deliberate rhythm in the disarray, a poetic vulnerability that adds surprising depth to a story centered on death and awakening.

The Soul’s Awakening isn’t just a story about dying. It’s about being seen. About confronting the selves we’ve buried beneath routine, trauma, and silence. It’s weird and heavy, but it’s also oddly hopeful. I’d recommend it to readers who loved The Midnight Library or to anyone who enjoys a spiritual journey that doesn’t coddle you. This one’s for the thinkers, the feelers, and those who’ve ever sat in a quiet room and asked, “What if death isn’t the end?”

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