After Series by Anna Todd Book Review


Book: “After” Series Book 1 by Anna Todd
My rating: 4/5 stars
My review and response to other reviews of the book

I just got finished reading “After” (Book 1 of 5) by Anna Todd after one week. It left me with a cliff hanger, so I had to immediately begin book 2 called “After We Collided.” This is my honest review of the first book, After. There are a lot of mixed reviews and comparisons to “50 Shades of Grey.” It does have a similarity to 50 Shades, but a completely different story of course. 

Apparently ‘After‘ started out as a fan fiction about boy band One Direction on Wattpad. It has over a billion reads online all together, and it just blew up, got published, and now a movie in the works. I’m not a fan of One Direction at all, but I randomly saw it on display at Barnes and Noble, right underneath ‘50 Shades of Grey,’ and it’s not like its about One Direction anyway since it’s a fan fic. I had never heard of it before, but it caught my eye. I honestly only read the first 50 Shades book and maybe a couple chapters of the 2nd book. It was good but honestly didn’t catch my attention enough to continue reading the remainder of trilogy, like how I am with ‘After.‘ 50 Shades had a too many unnecessary long, boring descriptions.  With ‘After‘, I feel Anna Todd got straight to the point with descriptions and didn’t keep them dragging like most books do. There has been a lot of reviews stating that the book isn’t written very well and childish. Although I do like how Todd doesn’t drag out descriptions, the writing is just OK. I found a few grammatical errors in the book and not many large words used. I can see why people say the book is childish; its very modern and the language used is how they do in my generation. I honestly related to the writing and was a very easy read.

For me, this book was a page turner. I really connected with the story and really related to the ‘crazy girlfriend’ feelings of Tessa. Why didn’t he come home all night? Why didn’t he text me? What does he mean by that? There were many hilarious parts and some sad. If you like romance and know you’re a crazy girlfriend too, you can relate to this book haha. Some people aren’t into these kinds of teen romance books, hence some of the negative reviews. It does have very mature content due to the sexual scenes, so I don’t believe this book is too childish at all like people say. If you liked 50 Shades, then you will probably like After. People say its an abusive relationship like 50 Shades, but its more of a mental abusiveness, not physical, like in 50 Shades. Don’t get me wrong, I hate to keep comparing the books, since they are really two completely different stories, but in response to other reviewers I would like to let you know what really compares and what doesn’t. 

Some people may think the book is repetitive, and maybe sometimes it is, but what gets me is that you STILL want to know what’s going to happen next. Will they make up? Will they betray each other now? What will happen? I came to really love HESSA, and Hardin grew on me because of their love. I’m almost halfway through ‘After We Collided’ now, and it’s really good so far! I wanted to finish reading After to know my complete thoughts on the book. And I love it! When I picked it up at Barnes and Noble I had never even heard of it, and I looked it up online to see the reviews. When I looked it up I saw there was so much hype on it, and I can see why. I honestly would recommend this book if these are the kinds of stories you like. Not everyone is interested in the erotic teen romance, but if you are, then I highly recommend it. 

#HESSA <3

What did you guys think of the book?

Purchase ‘After‘ on Amazon below:

After by Anna Todd Book 1