The Astonishing Color of After

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

Even though this book was published on March 20, 2018, I read an advanced reader's copy. Undoubtedly there will be some differences between the version I read, and the published version.

Also, this book deals with depression and suicide, and perhaps some other topics. If those are topics you do not want to read about, then I suggest skipping this book review.

An amazon summary, "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 luminous debut novel about finding oneself through family history, art, bravery, and love." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Leigh is half Asian and half white, and her best friend is Axel. Her mother is from Taiwan, and her father is Irish and has started to travel a lot for work. Leaving Leigh's mother at home with Leigh. Axel grew up with Leigh, and came to think of Leigh's mother as his second mom. Their friendship drastically changed the day Leigh's mother committed suicide; one because they kissed, but two because  Leigh withdraws from her usual life, and becomes obsessed with a bird who visits her. She's determined this bird is her mother. The bird also brings her things, clues. Leigh has never known her mother's parents, and begins to wonder why in earnest.

After a few things transpire, she finally convinces her father to take them to visit her mother's parents. Once there, Leigh is determined to figure out what happened between her mother and her grandparents, but there are a few problems, like a language barrier.

Then I stopped reading. I got to page 215 out of 464. I feel like that was more than enough, but I stopped because I couldn't stand Leigh's attitude anymore. I know she's young, I know she's grieving, but I also didn't care much for how she carried herself leading up this point, or in the flashbacks of her memory.

I did really like the shared passion for Art that Leigh and Axel had, but it wasn't enough of a neat feature to get me to finish reading the book. PLUS, I was almost halfway through the book and no closer to understanding why her mother didn't talk to her parents. Which...I can only handle the suspense of "I hope we solve this mystery" for so long with no clues. I was done.

Happy reading!