The Astonishing Color of After
by Emily X.R. Pan
Her mother died. She became a bird. Leigh goes to Taiwan to find her.
For you if
you have lost someone to suicide and need a book that doesn't simplify what that grief actually feels like
⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡
Not sold directly on this site. Support indie bookstores with a new copy, or go sustainable with a used one.
Buy New on Bookshop.orgSupports independent bookstores
— OR —
Find Used on Better World BooksSecondhand & sustainable
$13 MSRP
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.
Leigh's mother died by suicide. Leigh is convinced she became a bird. She travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time, searching for her mother's past and trying to understand her grief through the lens of Taiwanese culture and magical realism. Pan writes about suicide loss, mental health, biracial identity, and the specific experience of being half-Taiwanese in America with extraordinary care and formal ambition. The most important YA novel about suicide loss and the one that most honestly holds the complexity of loving someone whose mind was working against them.
Where This Book Lives
- Setting
- Taiwan • East Asia
- Voice
- Written by a Taiwanese author
Related Viewing
Shares a topic, theme, or setting with this book in the catalog.
Never Let Me Go(2010)
dir. Mark Romanek
Raised for a purpose they never chose.
Three friends grow up together at an idyllic English boarding school, slowly coming to understand — and largely accept — the specific, limited purpose their lives were engineered to serve. Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's novel.
Why it’s here: Punk in its quiet, devastating restraint — no uprising, no escape plot, just people trained from childhood not to fight their fate. Pedagogical in showing how a society justifies using some lives for others' benefit, one small acceptance at a time.
Turtles All the Way Down(2024)
dir. Hannah Marks
Living inside a mind that won't quiet down.
A sixteen-year-old chasing a missing-billionaire mystery with her best friend has to navigate love, friendship, and grief while living inside an unrelenting spiral of intrusive thoughts. Adapted from John Green's novel.
Why it’s here: Punk in depicting intrusive thoughts from the inside without turning them into a redemption arc or a clean cure — Aza's experience isn't resolved, it's managed, imperfectly, alongside friendship and love. Pedagogical in normalizing that living with a mental health condition is compatible with a full life, not a tragedy to overcome.
Same pattern, different era
Different time, different place. The same thing keeps happening.
Each Little Bird That Sings
Deborah Wiles
She grew up in a funeral home. She thought she understood death.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
I'll Give You the Sun
Jandy Nelson
Twins. Three years. Something broke them apart. Both of them tell it.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
When Sadness Is at Your Door
Eva Eland
Sadness arrives at the door. You can let it in.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Counting by 7s
Holly Goldberg Sloan
Her parents died. She counts by 7s. She finds her people.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
For the grown-up bookshelf
Same idea, written for a grown-up. Good for the adult in the room, too.
milk and honey
Rupi Kaur
The poems that gave survivors their words.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Nineteen Minutes
Jodi Picoult
The novel that asks who made the shooter.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
I Must Say
Martin Short
Martin Short: chaos in a bow tie.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
M Train
Patti Smith
A love letter to lost time and black coffee.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST