Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences.
Today we’re featuring The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan.
When fifteen-year-old Leigh’s Taiwanese mother commits suicide, she is visited by a great red bird who delivers a package to her from her mother with a note:
I want you to remember
Remember what? Certain that her mother has been reincarnated, Leigh travels from the U.S. with her white father to meet her Taiwanese grandparents for the first time. As Leigh learns more and more about her mother’s secretive life and journeys through her own grief, the red bird becomes more and more elusive, making Leigh worry that time is running out for her to figure out what she’s supposed to remember.
X.R. Pan’s debut is so astonishing it’s a heart stopper. Her writing is some of the most beautiful, lyrical prose I’ve ever read, all while she sensitively deals Leigh’s mother’s long fight with depression amid a lifetime of heartbreak. The Astonishing Color of After gave me chills, made me laugh, cry, and scream. Like Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls, the magical elements are both haunting and exhilarating as we follow brave young Leigh’s metamorphosis into the strong, resilient, and brilliant artist she was meant to be, reminding us of the power of grief. Though this outstanding, inventive book is marketed as young adult, it will be well-loved by adults and teens alike. Prepare to be mesmerized by this must-read for ages 13+.
Emily X.R. Pan 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 a co-creator of FORESHADOW: A Serial YA Anthology, the founding editor-in-chief of Bodega Magazine, and a 2017 Artist-in-Residence at Djerassi. Visit Emily online at exrpan.com, and find her on Twitter and Instagram: @exrpan
Posted by Michelle Leonard.
