The Astonishing Color of After

By: Emily X.R. Pan

Narrated by: Stephanie Hsu

Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

A stunning, heartbreaking debut novel about grief, love, and family, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson and Celeste Ng.

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.

Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a stunning and heartbreaking novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.

"Emily X.R. Pan's brilliantly crafted, harrowing first novel portrays the vast spectrum of love and grief with heart-wrenching beauty and candor. This is a very special book."—John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Emily X.R. Pan (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times bestseller

An IndieBound bestseller

Bustle Best of YA Books of 2018

A Paste Magazine Best Young Adult Novel of 2018

Winner of the Walter Honor Award

Winner of the APALA Honor Award

"Emily X.R. Pan's brilliantly crafted, harrowing first novel portrays the vast spectrum of love and grief with heart-wrenching beauty and candor. This is a very special book."—John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down

"Magic and mourning, love and loss, secrets kept and secrets revealed all illuminate Emily X.R. Pan's inventive and heart-wrenching debut."—Gayle Forman, bestselling author of If I Stay and I Was Here

"Emily X.R. Pan utterly transported me to a world reminiscent of Isabel Allende. Haunting at every turn, this is a glorious debut."—Renée Ahdieh, bestselling author of The Wrath and the Dawn

OMG

This book was fantastic. Stephanie Hsu was a fantastic narrator, and she conveyed proper emotion when needed. The plot of the book was well written and the loose ends tied up seamlessly. There were so many plot twists and I was never bored. The focus on oriental beliefs was a plus, as I am always eager to learn. Team Axel+Lee forever!!!!

soo amazing

I loved this book it was as oddly relatable to my life I loved when the 2 bestfriends in the end confessed the love for eachother that grown wildly over time. this book is a book to remember and defenitly gonna read it again.

Just not for me

This is a wonderful, beautiful story where the telling just wasn’t my cup of tea. I think if it was significantly shorter, I would have enjoyed it more but the search in the middle was very very drawn out.

Astonishing

This story of finding peace and love after loss was amazing. It struck me how much my find visualized the events as they took place.

Impeccable writing, slow build

While the story itself seemed to move along rather slowly, the writing was outstanding and the ending was worth the read.

color & ghosts

creative in its sadness , loved this book full of color and ghosts. the narrator did a great job also!

Uhhhh my heart

I did not expect from the beginning to get out of this book what I did. It was a remarkable expression of emotion that left you wondering, crying and hopeful through out. Incredibly impressed, definitely recommend... I have never read a book quite like this one.

well written imaginative story

The story is interesting and well written. The author's description of feelings and actions is exceptional. I would suggest reading it a couple chapters at a time so you can digest the plot.

A story about grief and acceptance

We could see a side of depression in one of the family members pov and saw how it affected them. How Leigh at her young age thought that she had the duty of taking care of her mom. We could see how realistic and painful it is for family members fight against depression.

Out of my Wheelhouse and Good book

Expanding my reading repertoire. This hood was worth it. Very interesting multi generational story. Read it.