Last night I did something that I haven’t done in years. I stayed up really late and finished this book. I sat on my couch, put on a Lifetime movie in the background (The Midwife’s Deception to be exact) and read more than 200 pages to finish this story. This put me to sleep after 1 AM and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel it today. I just finished an 8 AM Cyclebar class and in 45 minutes I will be at a yoga class – then I demand a nap! Anyway – as tired as I am, I missed the feeling of not being able to do anything else until I finished a book. I felt like a book person again, not just someone who reads books. I have no idea if that makes sense, but give me a break, I’m sleep deprived.
Emily X.R. Pan’s debut novel, The Astonishing Color of After, follows fifteen-year-old Leigh as she loses her mother to suicide and searches for her in the form of a bird. Her quest to find her mother (who she thinks is a bird), she travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents and discover why her mother had a falling out with them years ago. There is also a side plot of a romance between the narrator and her best friend who happened to kiss her on the day her mother died.
X.R. Pan does some interesting things with genre in this novel. It is classic YA mixed with a small but significant dose of fantasy elements. The chapters are short and jump between the past, the present, and memories before the narrator was born. Leigh is also an artist and as the title suggests, color is a major theme throughout this novel. I think the theme of color was an intriguing choice to make but at times it felt overused to me, like X.R. Pan was afraid the reader wouldn’t understand the connection so she told us instead of showed us.
The plot had unique pacing – big events seemed rushed and smaller events seemed drawn out. I was often left with questions about big plot points but was given long paragraphs describing drawing instead. I also think this book could’ve worked better in a different form like a graphic novel. There is so much rich imagery that I just wanted to see it. I wanted to see the intricate colors and the Taiwanise landscape.
Overall I enjoyed the book. I felt connected to Leigh’s character and her struggle with grief and abandonment with the maternal side of the family. As a person who normally doesn’t like fantasy, the elements that were included in this novel worked for me. I thought it could be shorter – I could’ve done without the romance storyline but it didn’t negatively effect my experience. I’d definitely recommend it.
She Persisted 