After

After 

by Anna Todd 

2.5-3 / 5 

“I am a moth to his flame,

and he never hesitates to burn me.”


      Let me start off by saying I went in to this book with a VERY open mind. There is so much hype around this book, and most of it isn’t good. Now I’m usually very open when it comes to romance, I mean I’ve read Twilight before and liked it, yes LIKED IT. SO I’m here for a good time and usually can overlook a lot if the romance and over all story is good. I read through this quite quickly so it has that easy to read fun aspect to it, but multiple times I kept pausing and really having issues with the characters and the story, AND even though I got through it pretty quickly I knew when I closed the book that I would not be continuing on with this series.

Tessa is the ultimate good girl. Sweet reliable boyfriend, ambitious future, and a mother who is intent on helping her stay on the right path. She’s barely moved into her freshman dorm when she runs into Hardin. With his tousled brown hair, cocky British accent, tattoos and lip ring, Hardin is different then what she is used to. But he’s also rude- to the point of cruelty, even. Tessa should hate Hardin, and she does- until she finds herself alone with him in his room.

      So this book started off really strong. I loved Hardin at first and could overlook some of his early actions. I mean I’ve read Bully by Penelope Douglas and loved it so I thought I could overlook some things in After, but at last I could not. Let me start by praising After and telling you the parts I did like. I liked that it read really quickly, even the parts that had me screaming in frustration. I also really like the POTENTIAL for Hardin. He was like the ultimate book boyfriend, in detail. He was British with tattoos, beautiful eyes and a cocky attitude, and for about 30-45% of this book I was down for Hardin but that quickly changed. I also liked the dynamic between Tessa and Hardin. He was the bad boy and she was the ultimate good girl and for once she wasn’t a character who was written so naively to the point that she sounded and acted 12 even though she was an adult. HOWEVER, I couldn’t get over the fact that Tessa constantly kept forgiving Hardin for things that there is no way I could ever justify overlooking even a bit. You know from the very beginning that Hardin is not a nice character, but like I said after the initial wow of meeting him wore off I found myself constantly rolling my eyes and shouting at Tessa. Like girl come on, you want a guy who EMOTIONALLY ABUSES you and then cries about how much he needs you all in the space of ten minutes? Hardin at points was so cruel that I had no idea how Tessa was going to forgive him, and then that ENDING. NO. NO. NO. There is no coming back from that, like yes we’ve all seen She’s All That and every variation of that movie and there are some things you can overlook if you feel the connection and chemistry between two people, but I felt like there was nothing between Hardin and Tessa except strong emotional dependence on both sides for completely different reasons. 

    So that ending should have finally solidified the end of their relationship, but being nosy and wondering what happens next I went online and read the reviews for the next book in the series. Now I take reviews lightly because not everyone is going to like and feel the same way about a book, we’re all different. BUT when 80% of the reviews complain about Tessa ONCE AGAIN forgiving Hardin way way way to quickly I knew that this series wouldn’t get any better. Who knows though maybe it does, but for me I can’t justify wasting anymore of my time reading a series that started off on such a bad note, and like I said from the very beginning, I knew the hype around this book. I knew the problems and still went it with an one mind ready to give it an honest read.
    I really did like Tessa despite her obvious flaw in accepting Hardin over and over again. I also liked the pace of the story, the college atmosphere, the other characters, but not being able to get over Hardin was a big problem for me. Now the biggest problem for me in this book was the cheating. Yes cheating, and not just once but over and over again. Tessa felt guilty EACH time and swore that she would never do it again, yet Hardin was like a drug. Girl I understand that, but if you want to be with Hardin SO bad then break the heck up with Noah. Nobody is forcing you to be with him, and in that lays one of my biggest problems with this book. Cheating is not good, does it happen in books that I end up still liking? Yes. Did I overlook it in this book? No. Tessa knew she was wrong and even when Noah found out and continued to give her chances she STILL cheated on him. Be done with him and go have your dysfunctional relationship with Hardin because at this point they do deserve each other. RANT OVER. But for real guys, this book is addicting in the same way that Hardin seems to be to Tessa. You can’t put it down even though you know its trash, and it’s not even good trash. So if you want to see what all the After hype is then give this book a shot. There are people who live for this series so who knows, you might be in with the 2% who do.
   So question of the day: Am I still going to watch the After movie when it comes out? Darn straight I am because I’ve seen the teaser and Hardin may be shitty but he is one hot piece of shit that I intend to potentially give away 2 hours of my time for, and you never know- this might be the odd man out there where you actually enjoy the movie more then the book!
   If you have read this book/series and need something else like this check out the Did I mention I love you series or The Summer I turned Pretty series (really anything Abbi Glines) !