The astonishing color of after

Title:

Author:

Summary:

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: when her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. When she travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time, Leigh 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 longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Audience:

Young adult

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

472 pages ; 22 cm

Genre:

Subject Term:

Racially mixed people -- Fiction.

Grandparents -- Fiction.

Americans -- Taiwan -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Taiwan -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Little, Brown and Company,

Electronic Access:

9781434219653

Publication Date:

2018

ISBN:

9780316463997

Publication Information:

New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2018.

Award Note:

A Junior Library Guild selection, July 2018.

Call Number:

YA PAN

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003330639	Young Adult	PAN	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

A Time Magazine 100 Best YA Books of All Time Selection

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

Author Notes

Emily X.R. Pan currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, but was originally born in the Midwestern United States to immigrant parents from Taiwan. She received her MFA in fiction from the NYU Creative Writing Program, where she was a Goldwater Fellow. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Bodega Magazine , and a 2017 Artist-in-Residence at Djerassi. She is the author of The Astonishing Color of After and An Arrow to the Moon . Visit Emily online at exrpan.com, and find her on Twitter and Instagram:@exrpan.

Reviews (2)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up-Leigh comes home to the unimaginable-her mother, who has always been depressed, has committed suicide. As her grief swells, Leigh believes in her fog that her mother has not died but her mother's spirit has now turned into a vivid bird who brings Leigh gifts, both physical and in the form of memories. Trying to put all the pieces together, her father and Leigh travel to Taiwan, where her mother immigrated from to the United States after meeting Leigh's father. She has never met her mother's family, and does not understand why her mother never spoke to Leigh about her parents or her childhood. Seeking answers for these questions and more, Leigh's father leaves her in Taiwan to stay with her grandparents. The present-day is woven with flashback memories; Pan's writing takes readers on a journey filled with so much emotion, color, and such well-developed characters with a touch of magic, readers will come to the ending drained and fulfilled at the same time. An exploration of grief and what it means to accept a loved one's suicide, this book's lyrical and heart-rending prose invites readers to take flight into their own lives and examine their relationships. VERDICT Pan's debut novel is not to be missed. Give this to fans of magical realism titles and any reader who is battling grief.-Stephanie Charlefour, formerly of Wixom Public Library, MI © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publisher's Weekly Review

In the wake of her mother's suicide, 15-year-old Leigh travels from the U.S. to Taiwan, where she hopes to come to terms with the tragedy while getting to know the maternal grandparents she has never met. Convinced that her mother has been reincarnated as a great red bird and eager to understand what happened, Leigh looks for symbols and meaning in the world around her; a stack of incense sticks grants her visions that allow insight into her mother's past and family history. At the same time, flashbacks illuminate Leigh's complicated relationship with her best friend Axel, whom she kissed the day her mother died. Pan's emotionally charged debut is a compelling exploration of grief and the insidiousness of depression. Her narrator, an artist by nature, sees the world through a colorful, complicated lens, and the novel is steeped in its Taiwanese setting. The subtlety and ambiguity of the supernatural elements place this story in the realm of magical realism, full of ghosts and complex feelings and sending an undeniable message about the power of hope and inner strength. Ages 12-up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.