The Astonishing Colour of After

By Author / Illustrator

Emily X.R. Pan

Genre

Adventure

Age range(s)

11+

Publisher

Hachette Children's Group

ISBN

9781510102965

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

22-03-2018

Synopsis

A New York Times bestseller.

'This brilliantly crafted novel portrays the vast spectrum of love and grief with heart-wrenching beauty and candor. A very special book' - JOHN GREEN, author of The Fault in Our Stars

Life, loss, love and art explode in a kaleidoscope of emotions as one girl must learn the truth about her family's past in order to bring peace to the present. For fans of John Green, Jennifer Niven, Jandy Nelson and Nicola Yoon.

Leigh Chen Sanders is sixteen when her mother dies by suicide, leaving only a scribbled note: 'I want you to remember'. Leigh doesn't know what it means, but when a red bird appears with a message, she finds herself travelling to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time.

Leigh is far away from home and far away from Axel, her best friend, who she stupidly kissed on the night her mother died - leaving her with a swell of guilt that she wasn't home, and a heavy heart, thinking she may have destroyed the one good thing left in her life.

Overwhelmed by grief, Leigh retreats into her art and into her memories, where colours collide and the rules of reality are broken. The only thing Leigh is certain about is that she must find out the truth. She must remember.

With lyrical prose and magical elements, Emily X.R. Pan's stunning debut novel alternates between past and present, romance and despair, as one girl attempts to find herself through family history, art, friendship, and love.

Reviews

On the evening that 16-year-old Leigh kissed her best friend Axel for the first time, she fled in panic because she was scared she'd lose her best friend - the boy she'd known for five years and the friend she valued most - only to find, when she arrived home to her distressed father, that they had lost her mother to suicide and her world was falling apart. She is racked with guilt and fearful about the future. Her mother has left only a discarded, scribbled note, and crossed out 'I want you to remember', but comes to Leigh in the form of a beautiful, mysterious and elusive red bird which leads her with her Dad to Taiwan and her estranged maternal grandparents. This novel traces Leigh's emotional journey as she copes with grief, trauma and the unravelling of memories - both her own and those of the people around her - and begins to understand and learn to live with the consequences of what has happened. Leigh's love of art and Axel's love of music are woven into the story and reflect the emotional tones. It's a beautifully and sensitively written book about loving and fearing, about guilt and forgiveness, about separation, about losing and finding - and I loved it. 472 pages / Ages 14+ / Reviewed by Jane Welby, school librarian.