What happens when you lose a sister to mysterious circumstances but nobody around you question the death? When I was Death by Alexis Henderson is a story about Roslyn who cannot just accept the death of her sister, Adeline, in the middle of the forest. So, when a bunch of teenage girls show up to her small town and invite her to a party, she feels an undeniable connection to Adeline that she has to explore. What ensues is a gruesome set of deaths, loss and reveals about her own life and past that she cannot escape.

Hi, welcome back to another supernatural book review. I would say When I was Death by Alexis Henderson is more of magic realism than fantasy. I like fantasy with a lot of world-building, and I am not the biggest fan of contemporary fantasy. By those preferences, the genre of magic realism is not for me as well. But I really liked the experience of reading this book. So, let’s get into it!

Title: When I was Death
Author: Alexis Henderson
Read: Audiobook – Libby
ISBN: 9780593859476
Published: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 3 March 2026
Page Count: 288

Plot of ‘When I was Death’: What really happens in the book?

The story begins after Adeline’s death. Roslyn is grief-stricken, lonely and mad curious to know what exactly happened to her elder sister. Adeline had a history of mental illness, but Roslyn remembers noting a change in her sister like she has completely given up on life just before she died. It would make sense if she committed suicide, but Adeline left no goodbyes for Roslyn. Roslyn is more heartbroken about the collapse of their relationship just before she lost her sister than the actual loss of her.
It is at this point in her life when Roslyn comes across a bunch of teenage girls travelling by themselves through her town. She is curious about them and attends the party she is invited to. She is the only guest. She soon figures out that they knew her sister. Fuelled by her need to know what happened to Adeline, Roslyn joins this ragtag team of girls on what seems like a road trip. That’s when she meets death and finds out what these girls are actually doing.
Death has recruited these girls to do his bidding when he saved them from near-death experiences. This is sort of a second chance for them and a game for him. Death wears black, wears cologne and makes pancakes. These girls are substituting their families and father figure in each other and in Death. Death protects them—from unsavoury people and situations—and provides for them. In return, these girls have to kill the people marked for death. Sometimes these are painless physical contact with the hand that Death had touched, sometimes these are bloody and gruesome. The girls shield Roslyn from the worst of it as she becomes part of the group.
Roslyn makes a deal with Death to find out what really happened to Adeline and is tasked with killing people. But the girls are hoarding secrets of their own that involve her sister too and Roslyn does not even know how involved she is before all is finally unveiled.

My Verdict on ‘When I was Death’ by Alexis Henderson: Is it worth reading?

I have a difficult time taking teenagers, or stories about them, seriously. I went into the book like, “Seriously? A bunch of teenage girls roped in to be Death’s minion as he struts about giving them names and locations?” But then I was swiftly reminded of Scythe by Neal Shusterman the way the narrative evolved and by the end I was left sobbing.
You would like this book if you like narratives that go from 0 to 100 within a couple of chapters. You will like this book if you like to be surprised by the twists and turns of the narrative—there are quite a few. The reader is drawn into the narrative with the primary mystery of what happened to Adeline and then kept there with the complex emotional narrative of the plot as the story slowly unravels Roslyn’s life.
This is a simple narrative that explores complex sisterly bonds by skirting around it. The absent presence of Adeline throughout the book despite her already being deceased haunted the narrative. This is pretty symbolic of Roslyn’s life and her dynamic with her sister. She was happy to put her elder sister in the periphery of her life and continue on with her future plans and running track. But only in her absence did she become completely obsessed with her memory and circumstance of death.
The book was surprising in the way that it went deeper than I had expected it to go from the initial premise. Female friendships, bonding between sisters and the subtle subtext of the world pitting women against each other from an early age is all there in the story.
If you like the manifestation of death in personhood like in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, you will not find Death here to be a fleshed-out character but as he appears in scraps and crumbs to the girls to get them to do his work. His intentions and motivations are not clear and that is something I wish the author had delved into a bit more.
Overall, this was good read. I would recommend When I was Death by Alexis Henderson for readers who like girls on adventure stories and stories about sisterly bonds. There’s a hint of queer romance in the book that I found to be written really well—brownie points for that.

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