Unfortunately the writing style just wasn't for me - I'm not much of a poetic/lyrical prose type of reader, and I wasn't a fan of this particular kind of magical realism either.

I adored this by Pan and this one is no different. Absolutely excellent book and a brilliant read. Recommend!

After Leigh's mom commits suicide she travels to Taiwan with her dad to meet her grandparents for the first time and to find out why her mother chose to end her life.
I liked this book but i also struggled with the book. I was intrigued in the story but i felt that it took a long time to read like you would be reading for an hour but only read like 30 pages, that kind of thing. I liked that it was a bit of mystery with them trying to find the bird. I liked how we learnt about the Tianwanese culture. I got a little bit thrown off by the flash backs but i did think they were needed as it was like clues to the mysetry and did make the book emotional.

This is one of those books that had so much hype surrounding its release that I was apprehensive, but it proved itself - this is a powerful, intense, emotional and touching book about Leigh's quest to unlock her family's past when she travels to stay with family in Taiwan after her mother's death. This was a beautiful and poignant story and I loved the cultural details.

I read enough reviews of this book before going in to know that it was going to be a lyrical, gorgeous read, and I certainly wasn't disappointed on that front! I'm so impressed that this is Pan's debut! She's clearly a real natural when it comes to the written word, exquisitely stringing them together but without making things too frilly.

So aside from the writing, I really loved a lot of elements from this book. Firstly - Taiwan! What a unique way to delve into a setting I know very little about. I learnt a lot about their lifestyle, their food and their unique folklore, traditions and superstitions. So much about it piqued my interest and I liked that Pan wasn't afraid to highlight both the good and the bad. She touched on a lot of themes - dealing with grief particularly, and attitudes towards mental health and marriage, particularly outside of the asian ethnicity. Also, though I don't usually like novels that jump around in time, I felt that it worked here very well.

This story does a great job with it's setting, and I've already mentioned the stunning writing, but I have to say that I wish there was a touch more in the way of character development (particularly with the MC) as the book is sparse on plot. We didn't learn too much about Leigh other than her fixation on art, her confusing feelings for her best friend Axel, and the guilt and obsession she feels after her mother's suicide. So much of the story centres on that, that it feels almost a little bizarre that she seems to get over and resolve it all so quickly at the end of the story. That's not to say there was absolutely no development at all though. The characters were interesting and for the most part likeable despite their flaws. A very enjoyable book!

I loved this book so much, If I explained everything I loved about this book I would be here for a century. This book may look pretty long but once you get into it you won't even notice it as you'll be crying for like 50 pages as Emily's description is just beautiful! If you do one thing read this book!

There’s no other genre of books than YA that handle death so well. This book is no exception and allows those who’ve experienced a loss to identify and those who haven’t to empathise.
The writer handles the subject matter with a passionate sincerity that ensures i’ll come back to this book time and time again.

This was an incredible young adult contemporary that deserves to be more widely known. It was breathtakingly beautiful with a searing portrayal of grief that almost broke me. It might be heartbreaking but the Astonishing Colour of After is quite simply one of the best books I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

When Leigh's mother dies, a bird appears with a box of her things; Leigh believes the bird is her mother. Her mother had mental health problems and took her own life; Leigh refers to that night as "the stain" and it haunts her. She is obsessed with the colour of things. She and her friend Axel are always asking "what colour?" to work out how the other is thinking or feeling. She is estranged from her Taiwanese maternal grandparents, but her father takes her to meet them to get the answers she is seeking; but wherever she goes the bird is just slightly out of her reach. In Taiwan, she meets Feng, a mysterious character who seems to get on well with her family. Feng helps her to navigate this new place and teaches her of the tradition that "after a person's death they have forty-nine days to process their karma" and her mother's time is almost up. Leigh starts to burn things from the box, each of which releases a memory that helps her to solve the mystery. This is a breathtakingly beautiful story about family, memory and grief. If you haven'tr read it yet, then please do.

Thank you to Orion and netgalley for sending me a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Content warnings: depression, suicide, suicidal ideation, death, loss, shock therapy, emotional abuse.

At 16 Leigh's world is turned upside down by her mother's suicide. When she starts to receive messages from a big red bird she just knows it's her mother and knows that she has to go to Taiwan to find out what she is trying to tell her.

The Astonishing Colour of After was one of my most anticipated debuts of the year. And it didn't disappoint. I originally didn't think of it as a favourite as I didn't connect with it much from an emotional standpoint, but in the months that have passed since reading, I think about it a lot. I don't even know how to review this book.

This is an incredibly important book. It deals with grief in such a unique way. At first I felt like I couldn't connect because it dealt with a lot of Chinese culture and struggling with being biracial, but now I think about it and look back on it it's just so much more than that. I felt the desperation of trying to understand what happened with her mother, why her mother killed herself specifically at that time despite dealing with depression her whole life. I've never even been through that but I FELT it. I think what it was that I just connected to the representation of grief. I've been through a lot of that in my life and god parts of this were so relatable it hurt. It took me a while to read this book just because it was so emotionally heavy. In the best way.

The thing I found so interesting was that you never knew if the kind of magical stuff that was happening was actually happening or whether it was all in Leigh's head. Was her mother really trying to leave her a message or was it all in Leigh's imagination because what she really wanted was to learn her heritage and about her family? There were times where this book really reminded me of the style of Murakami, but better because it wasn't from a male eye obsessed with the female form (I love Murakami but he has a creepy fascination). You really don't know what's real and what isn't. And there are a few twists in that respect which I wasn't expecting.

I think for biracial teens who struggle with their identity this book could be very cathartic. Because there is just so much discussion about never knowing where Leigh feels at home. She doesn't know if she feels more white or more Chinese. She Doesn't feel like she has a place in either community because she's "too Asian" for white people and "too American" for Taiwanese people. When she's in Taiwan she struggles with the language barrier and feels like a fraud.

There's a lot of flashbacks in this book, which mainly goes through the downward spiral of Leigh's mother as well as Leigh's own struggles of her love for art and her father's wish for her to be more into the sciences. And whilst I didn't love these flashbacks, because I just generally don't like flashbacks much. It really helped develop the story and helped my understanding of where Leigh was in her life and her relationship with both her parents.

Please read this book if you're up to it. It's staggeringly beautiful and one of the best debuts I've ever read.

A beautiful moving book about family and the past, a vivid picture of Taiwanese culture and at least 50% of the reason I decided to learn Mandarin, this book is something truly, truly special. It showed the grieving process that Leigh goes through and the impact of her mother's suicide in a very real way but without making it overwhelming or triggering for the reader. Painting it with colours and isolation and the magical realism of the bird.

The way that Leigh's grief is painted turns it to more of an adventure, chasing the bird and exploring her family and Tawainese heritage. It doesn't hide the harsh realities any more than Leigh's grief does, bringing them crashing down on her and her families head, as is always inevitable.

It's very hard to truly express how very special this book is, but it is definitely on list of books to push on everyone I know.

3.5 stars

Teenager Leigh Chen Sanders's life is turned upside down when her mother commits suicide.
After Leigh finds a note from her mother in the trash with the words 'I want you to remember', a large red bird appears. A bird that Leigh is sure is her mother.
Then Leigh makes her way to Taiwan to meet her mother's parents.
With her relationship with her best friend, Axel, on the rocks, and grief-stricken, Leigh is determined to do as her mother wanted and remember.
Why did Leigh's mother have nothing to do with her parents?
What will Leigh discover while in Taiwan?

The Astonishing Colour of After is the kind of book you want to savour while reading. The writing was beautiful, the story heartfelt and tear-jerking. I loved the magical realism aspects and finding out more about Leigh's family as well as her relationship with Axel.
Leigh was a relatable protagonist and I really felt for her. Leigh being mixed race was interesting and thought-provoking at times - an American called her 'exotic' and she was called a 'foreigner' in Taiwan. I can imagine that it would be hard to feel like you belong somewhere in a situation like that.
The plot was interesting and I liked that we got to see memories other than Leigh's own.
The writing style was easy to follow and immediately drew me in.
I am definitely looking forward to seeing what the author writes next.

Overall this was an enjoyable read that I would recommend.

An enchanting, immersive story of grief and love that touches on mental illness without romanticising or stigmatising it.

It is not a fast-paced book but a meandering, emotive journey that I very much enjoyed. The magical realism elements add to the amazing atmosphere of the book, and I loved looking into the Leigh's family's past.

Recommended to all contemporary fans looking for something thought-provoking and beautiful.

I received a copy from Netgalley.

Another case of really good book but I’m not all that sure I really liked the main character much. The novel is about dealing with deep depression, and grief after the suicide of a parent and learning about said parent’s cultural heritage.

One thing I really loved about the book was the look into Taiwanese culture, something I know nothing about. Main character Leigh is half white on her dad’s side and Taiwanese on her mother’s side. She’s never known her mother’s parents who live in Taiwan, when her mother left to marry her father it caused a big split in the family.

Leigh has a huge crush on her best friend Axel, over time her feelings for him have developed and she’s super jealous of Axel’s girlfriend. (This was really annoying. There weren’t many females Leigh’s age mentioned in the novel other than Leigh’s one other friend Caro and anyone girl who wasn’t Caro Leigh doesn’t seem to like, from what I remember, it got annoying fast.)

Leigh is an artist, she loves drawing and sees the world and her emotions in color. She and Axel have a thing where something is happening and Axel will ask her “what color?” and she will respond with whatever shade she sees at that particular moment. I don’t think it was synesthesia just her way of looking at the world. Initially this came across as kind of pretentious. I very nearly DNFed this book several times at the beginning. It felt very long winded and over written, and maybe there was something about it I just wasn’t getting.

The description for the book hinted and magical realism which is one of my favorite things, so I stuck it out to see where it would come in.

Leigh’s world changes, starting with a defining moment with Axel to the sudden shock of her mother’s suicide. She’s completely numb and devastated. Her emotions are all over the place and it’s completely understandable. While I could empathize with Leigh and could understand the massive trauma and shock such a horrific thing can do to a person, as a character I found her flat and hard to connect with.

She finds herself heading to Taiwan to meet grandparents from her mother’s side she never knew while her dad throws himself into his work for the summer. The grandparents don’t speak much English and Leigh doesn’t speak much Mandarin though she is learning. There’s a lot of foreign language spoken in the book which sometimes can be very jarring when you don’t speak the other language (or can be for me which sounds terrible and very white privilege, I know) though in this book it just fit in the narrative and was really interesting to learn some new words and phrases.

Leigh has an experience before heading to Taiwan where she thinks she sees her mother in the body of a red bird and becomes convinced she has to find the bird and the bird has now turned up in Taiwan with her. There is a cultural legend revolving around the reasons why.

A young lady called Feng, a friend of the grandparents shows up to help with the cultural differences and language barriers. Leigh learns about Spirit Week and some of the festivals taking place at the time she is visiting. While thanks to her mom’s influences Leigh is fairly well versed Taiwanese cooking, but there’s a whole host more to learn when she’s there. The descriptions of the food sound absolutely divine.

The narrative is in a then and now format - what happened with Axel and Caro before and what’s happening in the present. This also ties in the magical realism aspect when Leigh starts accessing her memories of her mom and not just her memories. There’s a really fascinating element where she can see her mom’s past memories as well. Leigh learns some things she never knew about, and has to come to terms with some things she did but couldn’t really bring herself to accept.

There’s a wonderful family dynamic as hard as it can be for one family, when she meets her friend Caro, Caro’s family is so different and vibrant from Leigh’s own more sombre one. The difference is kind of heart breaking but interesting at the same time.

Leigh and her family visit all her mom’s favorite places in Taiwan. Which again is completely absorbing. It’s beautifully described and beautifully written. Though Leigh can be quite a bitch to Feng who’s only trying to be nice and help. Feng has a really unexpected back story and there’s a twist to her character as well.

The other focus of the novel is Leigh’s plans for college and her future. She desperately wants to follow art but her dad is pressuring her to find something more practical. Leigh has to figure out whether she wants to do something that’s right or follow her heart to find something in the field that she really loves.

And then there’s her relationship with Axel. (Kind of predictable and bit eye rolling) but did make me smile at the end.

Despite a rocky start, I’m glad I stuck with the novel as it really did get better and by the end I loved it, and it made me quite teary in places. While sad in some respects, there were some uplifting moments. An honest and believable novel, at times hard and unflinchingly difficult in the narrative. But definitely worth a read. And most certainly an author that is going on my auto buy list. I loved this so much by the end I did buy a finished copy.

Thank you to Netalley and Hatchette Children’s Books for the review copy.

This book has a lot of good things going for it - discussion of suicide/depression, family feuds and secrets, cultural discovery, the power of memories etc. The writing is great at making you feel the characters' emotions, makes the world come to life, and there are plenty of moments where you want to pause and reflect on sentences. All of this combined with a hint of magical realism leads towards a great book, but sadly it wasn't quite the 5-star reading I was hoping it to be. I don't know what was missing or what let it down - perhaps I just overhyped it - but I ended up only giving it 3 stars. I do highly recommend it though as I'm sure others will love it for everything that I've mentioned.

I am in shock at how much I actually loved this. I still want to cry, the writing was so unbelievably beautiful and truly astonishing.

I enjoyed the writing style of this book, but for me it brought up feelings of grief that I wasn’t prepared to resurface. I read about the first 100 pages and couldn’t continue for this reason. But I did like the writing and where the story was going. A different culture to the one I know was portrayed in this book and I was interested to learn more about that. This is a very beautiful book that evokes lovely imagery, of which I would have liked to explore more.

I feel like a lot of people will adore The Astonishing Colour of After, and I liked it but it didn’t wow me. It’s probably more of an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ type of situation. It might be because I was in a bit of a reading slump while reading this but I did have a little trouble getting into this and the pacing felt a little off for me.

However, it did have some lovely and lyrical writing, some of the best I’ve read in a while. The Astonishing Colour of After was also filled to the brim with heritage and culture and it had a biracial Taiwanese-American main character, which I can imagine will mean a lot to a lot of people.

The Astonishing Colour of After is, ultimately, a book about grief, sorrow, and magic. It was about healing and coming to terms with the death of a loved one. I imagine a lot of people will fall in love with this book. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a miss for me.

I did really like the romance too, it was a friends-to-lovers trope which I’m always a sucker for. It was well developed and Axel and Leigh had some really lovely chemistry. The Astonishing Colour of After also featured art very prominently, which I’m not always keen on, but it was important to the story so if you like artistic main characters, then this is the book for you!

Overall, I would recommend The Astonishing Colour of After if you are looking for a heartfelt and sad but magical book that is full of culture and heritage. And it was a good book, but the pacing made it hard for me to read sometimes.

I really don't know what to say about The Astonishing Colour of After by Emily X. R. Pan. It's difficult trying to put my feelings into words. This book is absolutely incredible; it's so beautiful, but also so unbelievably moving.

When her mum dies by suicide, Leigh is distraught. Especially as she wasn't home that night, but instead kissing her best friend Axel. Leigh wants to do as her mum asked in her suicide note - "I want you to remember" - but she doesn't know what she means. Remember what? When a huge red bird turns up on her doorstep, speaking with her mother's voice, she knows her mum has transformed into a bird. With the bird telling her she must go to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time, she can do nothing but do as her mum wishes, knowing the answers she seeks will be there. Memories engulf her in Taiwan, both her own and those of others, and through visiting all her mum's favourite places, she's learning about who her mum was before she became her mum. But she learns of the Buddhist belief that after a person dies, their spirit resides for 49 days to let go of the those things which tie them to their life before rebirth, and there isn't much time left - will she figure out what her mum want her to know before the red bird disappears for good?

The Astonishing Colour of After is a story of love, grief, family and identity, and is told through the present, through Leigh's own flashbacks, and through the memories of others. Leigh has never been to Taiwan, she has never met her maternal grandparents, and she doesn't know why. Her mother would refuse to talk about them or her life back in Taiwan. But now her mum, as the red bird, has told her she needs to go to Taiwan. While she's grieving and trying to fulfil her mother's wishes, she's learning about herself through family history. Leigh is biracial; half-Taiwanese, half-white-American, but has always been cut off from her Taiwanese heritage because of her mother's refusal to talk about her parents or her time in Taiwan. Now, with her grandparents - her Waipo (grandmother) and Waigong (grandfather) - and family friend Feng, Leigh is learning about life in Taiwan, her family, their beliefs, and her culture; through food, and visiting temples, and learning about Ghost Month.

There is something really quite beautiful about how Pan weaves together Buddhist beliefs and magical realism in this story. As I said in my description, Buddhists believe that after a person dies, their spirit is remains for 49 days before making the transition into rebirth, and this is why Leigh's mum is still around in the form of a red bird. At first, I just thought it was magical realism, but when Leigh visits a Buddhist temple with her Waipo and Feng, she learns about this belief, and understands why her mum is still around. But she still has to learn - remember - what her mum wanted, and the magical realism takes a different path; as well as her thinking back over her own memories in the form of flashbacks, she is able to access the memories of others; her mother's memories, her father's, her Waipo's, her Waigong's - her grandfather. It's through these memories, over time, that she comes to learn about her family's history; how everyone came to live the lives they live, why there was this breach between her mum and her grandparents. She also learns about her mum's depression.

Because her mum didn't just die, she died by suicide. Through Leigh's own memories and the memories of others, we learn about this woman, Dory, who, when doing ok, was light and joy and full of love, but who also struggled with very severe depression. We know from the beginning that Leigh feels guilty for kissing her best friend while her mum was dying, how if she was at home she feels she might have saved her. But we come to stand just how heavy that guilt is as we learn about the past, and see just how her mum struggled. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see Leigh not knowing how to help her mum, and to see, through her own memories, how fast and hard Dory was sinking. There's a moment in the book when we get to fully understand exactly what Dory was going through, and it broke me. But there is hope. Hope and peace are found despite grief, and I guess, in a way, it's found through faith. What Leigh has learnt, through her family and her time in Taiwan, about Buddhist beliefs helps her - and there's never any doubt that her mum is a bird, so those beliefs ring true.

The Astonishing Colour of After is a quiet, heartbreaking, but hopeful and overwhelmingly beautiful story that is going to stay with me for such a long time. It's masterfully told, with such gorgeous writing and stunning imagery. This book is absolutely exquisite, and in Pan I have found a new favourite author. I cannot wait to see what Pan shares with us next.

Thank you to Orion Children's Books via NetGalley for the eProof.

4/5 stars

This book perfectly captures the ache of loss, that feeling of knowing you could have done better, regretting not spending more time with a person before they were gone, blaming yourself for everything even though it's not your fault. Watching Leigh work through her grief was incredibly difficult, and seeing her lash out at those around her because she felt out of control felt so honest and true to the grieving process that it made me hurt to read this novel.

I found Leigh was an incredible main character. A young girl who is flawed and struggling, a talented young artist using colour to describe her emotions when she doesn't fully understand what she feels. The descriptions in this book are absolutely beautiful, and I really felt that it helped me see the world the way Leigh did, full of colour, but also of encroaching darkness. I loved the exploration of her relationship with her parents and her grandparents, and I thought the family aspects were probably overall the best parts, because it also allowed an exploration of culture and identity that I loved.

At times, however, I struggled with the flashbacks to Leigh's time at school that focused on her relationship with her best friend, Axel. I feel like if those parts were in a separate novel, I would love them. I would have rather they not been in there- the focus on depression, suicide, the family, culture, was all so incredible, that all the relationship added was a conflict that really felt insignificant and made an already chunky novel even longer. Despite the length, whenever I sat down to read the book, I got through over 100 pages a sitting. It just took me over a month to read, is all.

Overall, this is a very moving, very difficult to read novel about mental illness, coping with grief and understanding yourself, your culture, and beginning to accept your identity to live your life how you want to. There was no romanticization of mental illness, and there's an openness to the ending that truly makes it feel like these characters will continue to grieve but will also find happiness.