My Thoughts about AFTER by Anna Todd

AFTER

by Anna Todd

Publication Date: October 21, 2014

Published by Gallery Books

Pages: 582

Source: Purchased

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Synopsis

Tessa is a good girl with a sweet, reliable boyfriend back home. She’s got direction, ambition, and a mother who’s intent on keeping her that way. 

But 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 cute and different from what she’s used to. 

But he’s also rude—to the point of cruelty, even. For all his attitude, Tessa should hate Hardin. And she does—until she finds herself alone with him in his room. Something about his dark mood grabs her, and when they kiss it ignites within her a passion she’s never known before. 

He’ll call her beautiful, then insist he isn't the one for her and disappear again and again. Despite the reckless way he treats her, Tessa is compelled to dig deeper and find the real Hardin beneath all his lies. He pushes her away again and again, yet every time she pushes back, he only pulls her in deeper. 

Tessa already has the perfect boyfriend. So why is she trying so hard to overcome her own hurt pride and Hardin’s prejudice about nice girls like her? 

Unless…could this be love?

Now newly revised and expanded, Anna Todd’s After fanfiction racked up 1 billion reads online and captivated readers across the globe. Experience the Internet’s most talked-about book for yourself!

There was the time before Tessa met Hardin, and then there’s everything AFTER ... Life will never be the same.

My Thoughts

Choosing to read AFTER was one of those FOMO situations - as they do happen. But that's not the only reason I decided to read it. I knew that I would watch the movie and when I found out that it was written as Harry Styles fan fiction, I thought, well now I have to read it. Silly, I know.

From the beginning, I felt a Cruel Intentions vibe will reading it. I couldn't help but think - how was this story going to play out? How are these people who aren't really nice to each other going to become a couple? I was caught off guard with the ending and I really didn't see what was coming. But then I ask myself with the Cruel Intentions comparison, how could I miss it?!

This book drove me crazy, and yet I kept reading it. The relationship between Tessa and Hardin was TOXIC. Where did the love that Tessa declared she had for Hardin come from? Until they were "together" neither of them treated the other as though they even liked the other person. She had something for him, but it wasn't love. It makes me wonder what her relationship with Noah was like. And it makes me question Tessa's idea of love and does she even know what it is.

I am curious about how the story continues, but it'll be a while before I pick up the next book to find out. Reading this series is a commitment and these books are huge. I am interested in reading more books by Anna Todd and find out what she's given readers beyond the Hardin and Tessa saga. And I'm still looking forward to watching the movie - and it comes out this week!

Disclaimer: I purchased a copy of this title for my personal library. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

New Release: THE SPRING GIRLS by Anna Todd - Excerpt

The Spring Girls by Anna Todd 

A coming of age, new adult romance. 

Release Date: January 2^nd, 2018 

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Four sisters desperately seeking the blueprints to life—the modern-day retelling of Louise May Alcott’s Little Women like only Anna Todd (After, Imagines) could do.

The Spring Girls—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—are a force of nature on the New Orleans military base where they live. As different as they are, with their father on tour in Iraq and their mother hiding something, their fears are very much the same. Struggling to build lives they can be proud of and that will lift them out of their humble station in life, one year will determine all that their futures can become.

The oldest, Meg, will be an officer’s wife and enter military society like so many of the women she admires. If her passion—and her reputation—don’t derail her.

Beth, the workhorse of the family, is afraid to leave the house, is afraid she’ll never figure out who she really is.

Jo just wants out. Wishing she could skip to graduation, she dreams of a life in New York City and a career in journalism where she can impact the world. Nothing can stop her—not even love.

And Amy, the youngest, is watching all her sisters, learning from how they handle themselves. For better or worse.

With plenty of sass, romance, and drama, The Spring Girls revisits Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women, and brings its themes of love, war, class, adolescence, and family into the language of the twenty-first century.

Read an Excerpt:

Meet the Springs

Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,”

Jo declared from her spot on the rug.

She sat at the feet of her oldest sister, Meg. Jo’s long brown

hair was unruly, as it always was. She was my strong girl. She

was the only one of my girls who didn’t hog the bathroom. Her

delicate fingers, the black polish on their nails chipped, picked

at the frayed edges of the Afghan rug under her folded legs.

The hand-woven black-and-red textile had once been bright and

beautiful, and I remembered when my husband had sent it to

our house back in Texas from his former post in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

In my head, Denise’s scratchy voice reminds me to use

proper military lingo: my husband’s FOB in Kandahar. The biggest

forward operating base in Afghanistan, she would also necessarily

add. Denise was always on my case. Come to think of

it, she even had comments about the rug when I got it. She said

he could have sent it to the base and paid no fee.

None of that mattered to my girls. From the moment it arrived,

they loved that rug as much as I did. When I ripped open

the package from their dad, who had been living across the

world for the past eight months, the girls—particularly Jo—

were excited to own such a beautiful, culture-filled treasure

from the other side of the world. Meg loved that we now had

a lavish handcrafted object in our simple home. She was my

most materialistic daughter, but I always knew that if I tried

to teach her right, she would use her love of shiny things to do

something magical and worthwhile with her life. Amy was too

young to really care about the rug, and of course Beth knew

it was coming because her daddy knew that she was the only

Spring Girl who could be trusted to keep the secret. Plus, on

a more practical level, since Beth was basically homeschooled,

Frank knew she could watch out for it. Later, he explained to

me that he wanted to mail the package straight home so that

we could be treated with the rug as a surprise on our doorstep,

rather than as a pickup chore on the base. I’m not sure if I told

Denise that she would understand.

Of late, our beautiful rug wasn’t as beautiful anymore.

Dirty shoes and heavy bodies had worn it down, and the colors

blended into a mud brown that I tried my best to clean, but the

color just wouldn’t come back.

We loved it not one bit less.

Read Today! 

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Meet Anna Todd:

Anna Todd is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of the After series. Hailed by Cosmopolitan as “the biggest literary phenomenon of her generation,” Anna began her literary career on the social storytelling platform Wattpad. Serialized on Wattpad in 2013, After has over 1.5 billion reads on the site. The print edition, published in 2014 by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, has over 15 million copies in circulation, has been published in over 30 languages and is a #1 bestseller in Italy, Germany, France and Spain.

A native of Ohio, Anna was a voracious reader all her life, citing Pride & Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Fifty Shades of Grey as some of her favorites. In 2012, after discovering the world of fanfiction for fandoms like Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, The Mortal Instruments, Anna began writing as a way of continuing the stories she so loved from fanfiction community.

Connect with Anna:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorannatodd/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/imaginator1dx 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imaginator1d/ 

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