Book Title: The Astonishing Color of After
Author: Emily X.R. Pan
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Number of Pages: 480
Genre: young adult, contemporary, magical realism, fantasy, fiction, mental health, romance
Release Date: March 19, 2019
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 reality and magic, past and present, hope and despair, THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER is a novel about finding oneself through family history, art, bravery, and love.
About the Author:
Emily X.R. Pan is the New York Times bestselling author of THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER, which won the APALA Honor Award and Walter Honor Award. It was also a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, and named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Best YA Books of All Time. Her latest novel, AN ARROW TO THE MOON, was an instant national bestseller, a Locus Award finalist, a CALA Award nominee, and featured on NPR’s Best Books of 2022. Emily is currently on the faculty of the creative writing MFA programs at The New School and Vermont College of Fine Arts. Find her on social media: @exrpan.
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