Something Else: The Background

When I heard about Something Else before its release last month, I didn’t know what to expect. After all, it was the original story, Something I Am Not, that had me sobbing on my bedroom floor after midnight. (No wonder it won the 2020 Christian Indie Award for Best YA and was a 2020 Carol Finalist.) Nothing of the story or its characters felt incomplete to merit a sequel, and I didn’t think any other book could rival the impact Something I Am Not had on me.

Plus, when I asked the author what the sequel was about, all she said was, “Billy’s life after he’s married.”

I thought, Oh, okay. Huh. I knew anything with Billy would be interesting, but it didn’t sound all that interesting.

Ahem. Cher Gatto massively undersold the story. While Billy’s first story will always have a special place in my soul, this sequel story, Something Else, just might be better.

Something Else: The Story

Billy is married to the love of his life. Working the job that brings him closure and reward after what he suffered. Building his relationship with the family he thought he’d never have. Everything seems perfect.  

But the life Billy left behind will never let him go. Or did he never let it go?

When an off-the-books job goes south, Billy is reminded of the person he’d once been—and the man who made him that way—while the secrets he still hasn’t shared with his wife loom larger than ever. Then, one after another, ghosts of his past invade his life with revelations, secrets, and threats. No one is safe.  

Going rogue with a colleague, Billy sets out to overcome once and for all the darkness of his past—and the darkness in himself—only to face the man behind it all.

Something Else: The Review

I was sucked in on the first page—and not spat out until the very last page. Every page in between carried me forward on an emotional journey even deeper, higher, more harrowing, and more beautiful than the first book.

My heart broke. Multiple times. For Billy, for his family, for the people of his past now back in his present and shaping his future. For the realities of a dark, evil world that sucks in the broken-hearted and never spits them back out.

My heart also soared. Time and time again. For Billy, for his family, for the people around him. For the realities of a brilliant, transcendent hope and an unconditional love that rescues the broken-hearted from the world and never lets them go.

Like a dog with a chew toy, this story set its jaws in my heart and wrenched from one side to the other, back and forth, until finally, gently setting it down at the end. The way there hurt, but the gradual restoration leading up to the ending, and the sweet ending itself (though a touch bittersweet), made up for the rough treatment of my emotions.

I thought I knew everything from the first story. Wrong. Something Else unearths the story beneath the story, bringing to light new connections, secrets, and powers without uprooting everything that happened in Something I Am Not. Kudos to Cher Gatto for following up such a powerful original with such an original sequel.

And the message. While this second book doesn’t carry the same specific allegory as the first book, it is spiritually symbolic—and generally allegorical—in a similar way, drilling deeper into the lies we tell ourselves and the truths of Scripture, with the purpose of communicating the foundational reality of who we are in Christ and His victory.

On top of that, the more local messages of the book’s Christian content communicate a rich tribute to God’s power to heal, forgive, and restore, and His people’s potential to find—and give—that same healing, forgiveness, and restoration among each other.

Like its precursor, Something Else deals with topics of prostitution, trafficking, and abuse both physical and sexual, along with organizational corruption, a marriage relationship, and illegal fighting. You get the full dose of reality—the people, the places, the events, and some of the language—delivered honestly but not graphically. No abuse is shown “on camera,” and the few married-couple scenes stay above the details.

Because of this mature content, however, I give a word of caution to sensitive readers, young readers, or readers who may be easily triggered. While Something I Am Not is geared toward mature YA readers, the main character being married now bumps Something Else more securely into adult fiction, though still accessible to the more mature YA reader.

In conclusion, Something Else provides a visceral reading experience rivaled only by its precursor. Cher Gatto’s writing offers a master class of creativity, with a study of clever motifs, multi-level coherence, and satisfying full-circle effects. Together the deep themes and relevant topics of this book strike hard at the dark side of society many of us don’t know about and reveal the dark side of our own hearts, while also glorying in the brilliant hope and light of restoration God offers to every one of us.

Something Else by Cher Gatto is the literary equivalent of an earthquake. Get ready for your soul to be moved.