Review – The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Magical Realism
Length: 480 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-0316463997
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.”

I had heard a lot of amazing things this book and love reading magical realism types of stories, so I was very excited to read this. This didn’t quite live up to all the hype for me. Parts of the book were a bit slow and I felt like the ending (especially the storyline about Leigh and Axel) was rushed. It was a good book, I liked it…but didn’t love it.

The core of this story is about a family dealing with suicide/depression. Leigh’s mom has committed suicide after a long struggle with depression. Shortly after this Leigh sees a red bird that she is sure is her mother. This red bird leads her and her father to finally go to Taiwan to spend time with Leigh’s mother’s parents. While in Taiwan Leigh finally learns about her mom’s past. The story bounces between present, Leigh’s past, and memories of Leigh’s mother/father/grandmother.

I thought Pan did an excellent job of showing how helpless family members feel when dealing with a family member who has depression. I also thought she did a great job of showing that Leigh’s mom was not a “bad” person or a selfish person, she just didn’t know how to get herself out of her downward spiral. Unfortunately, despite all the external support in the end it’s the person with depression who has to really work and struggle against the disease. It’s a disease that never really goes away and sometimes a person just gets too tired to fight it.

Unfortunately, I thought the story was a bit slow and I never really engaged with Leigh that well. It was beautifully written but seemed kind of long to me.

Overall this was a very well written book with a hopefully ending. It was a bit of a depressing and an emotional read, but I enjoyed how the story was put together. While this wasn’t as awesome as I was hoping it would be, it was still well done. I would recommend specifically to people who are interested in reading a book about families dealing with depression and/or suicide.