After
Anna Todd, 2014
Romance Contemporary fictionYoung adult
A story of intense, complicated romance where desire clashes violently with self-preservation. Explore the nature of love when it feels more like a fever. The pull between desire and self-preservation drives a feverish, dramatic romance, with a voice that stays close and urgent.
Feels like passion and longing. About love and time.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you're drawn to intense, complicated young-adult romance and messy attraction. Be warned that the central relationship is volatile and often toxic, so it may frustrate readers who want tenderness or calm.
Why read it
It gives you a close-up of attraction that feels like a fever, and asks how love and self-preservation can coexist when desire keeps winning.
A page from the book
When deep affection crosses the line into obsession.
Hardin is like a drug; each time I take the tiniest bit of him, I crave more and more. He consumes my thoughts and invades my dreams. Anna Todd.The book is highly reflective of the social media and intense emotional landscape of modern young adulthood. Todd often draws from real-life observations of toxic attraction.
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Questions readers ask
- Is After for me?
- You may like it if you're drawn to intense, complicated young-adult romance and messy attraction. Be warned that the central relationship is volatile and often toxic, so it may frustrate readers who want tenderness or calm.
- What is After like?
- The pull between desire and self-preservation drives a feverish, dramatic romance, with a voice that stays close and urgent. Feels like passion and longing. About love and time.
- What should I read after After?
- If you liked After, try Voyager (Diana Gabaldon), Saving 6 (Chloe Walsh) and A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Jennifer L. Armentrout).
A taste of the feed
Desire that arrives as need, not want.
I need to feel your lips on mine.“ He planted his hands on the carriage wall, caging me in. ”I need to feel your breath in my lungs. I need to feel your life inside me. I just need you. It’s an ache. This need. Can I have you? All of you?
A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire · Jennifer L. Armentrout
Missing someone is proof you were lucky, not unlucky.
But I’ve learned over the past year what it really means to be able to miss someone. In order to miss someone, that means you were privileged enough to have them in your life to begin with.
Losing Hope · Colleen Hoover
The moment someone tells you you've changed, and they're right.
Mind my words, Cheshire, I will have you banished from this kingdom if you tempt me.“ ”An empty threat from an empty girl.“ She rounded on him, teeth flashing. ”I am not empty. I am full to the brim with murder and revenge. I am overflowing and I do not think you wish for me to overflow on to you.“ ”There was a time“ – Cheshire yawned – ”when you overflowed with whimsy and icing sugar. I liked that Catherine better.
Heartless · Marissa Meyer
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