After - Review

After #1

By: Anna Todd

Published: October 21, 2014 by Gallery Books

593 pages

Genre: New Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Source: Personal Kindle Library

(Goodreads / Amazon)

Summary:

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

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?

MY REVIEW:
Mistake #1 - I saw the movie before reading the book.

Mistake #2 - I watched the movie A LOT before reading the book, which sometimes is hard to separate when reading the book.

I don't recall ever hearing about After, the book series, until the movie came out. I went to see it with my sister-n-law, Sandy from Somewhere Only We Know. She's my go-to movie buddy for any book-to-movie adaptation. We've seen a lot of movies together and share the same taste in books. I recall loving the movie, even the somewhat eye roll moments the first time I saw it. I knew after watching it that I would HAVE to read the book series eventually. That took me a long time to actually do, but I finally purchased it and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! I didn't even realize it was over 500 pages long until after I began writing my review! Usually long books stress me out because I know they'll take me longer to read. But ya'll - even though I knew a lot about the story from the movie, there are a lot of differences. Of course, as to be expected, the book is way better!

Fair warning - the book is also way more graphic than the movie was! It's steamy, it's hot, and it's angsty.

Now to the story line itself...

Book one is told from the perspective of Tessa. She has recently graduated high school and is moving to attend college at Washington Central University to major in English, the same college her mom graduated from. She's had only one boyfriend, Noah, and they've been together for a couple of years, and have been best friends since elementary age. He is definitely her comfort zone. He's good to her. He's nice. However, their "looks good on paper" relationship is seriously lacking in passion.

Tessa's mother is very high maintenance and high demanding - which is a major difference from the movie. In the book, Tessa and her Mom's relationship is rocky, and for fair reasons. Her father left when she was 10 and hasn't been involved in her life since. Tessa has been sheltered, she's naive, she's innocent, but she's genuinely good and she cares what others think. Going away to college is a new experience she is desperate for. She's ready to branch out and live a little...away from the judgmental eyes and opinions of her mother.

It all starts on dorm room move-in day, with her red-hair-dyed, tattooed roommate and her opening greeting to Tessa: "Welcome to WCU, where the dorms are tiny and parties are huge." Then two male friends show up, in their female dorm. Hardin Scott is one of those two guys.

Hardin is gorgeous but in a dangerous way. He has a lip piercing, an eyebrow piercing and lots of tattoos. He's standoffish, he's rude, he's sarcastic and he's British. Tessa is like a moth to the flame. She can't stand him, but she's drawn to him. With each unpleasant and embarrassing interaction that she seems to have with him, she finds herself thinking about him constantly, wondering who the real Hardin is. Don't forget she has a boyfriend.....and yes, be prepared because there's cheating involved in this story. Tessa doesn't always make the best choices with a clear, level head.

A couple things to note, the movie was sweet. The book is gritty, dark and as I said earlier, graphic. There is a constant push and pull between Tessa and Hardin. He constantly pushes her away and she constantly pulls him in. There is a sense of a love/hate relationship between them for at least the first half of the story. She hates his attitude and his cruel way of dealing with emotion. He hates the way she intentionally pushes buttons and in his perception, does things to purposefully make him jealous or angry. But yet their chemistry and dynamic repeatedly pulls them together, every time. And eventually, they can't say no to the other, and in that pull they begin to fall deeper for the other.

The movie totally misses the boat with this aspect of the book. We miss seeing the anger Hardin has, only getting a glimpse of it. We don't see his struggle to be "good" for Tessa. We don't see his cruel reactions to the emotion of love. It's a feeling he's never had before, never wanted before and has guarded himself against, and therefore, doesn't know how to show it. He doesn't know how to be in a relationship. Hardin is a very selfish person in the book. Whereas, the movie seems to portray him more as someone (albeit a bad boy) who just falls in love with Tessa. In the book, it's just not that simple.

I won't go into all the many differences that the movie has, but after a recent re-watch of it, after I finished the book, I was able to pick out sooooo many things. Had I read the book first and then watched the movie, those differences would've annoyed me. But now, I just view them as two stories that I equally enjoyed but for slightly different reasons. For the movie, the major pro being that Hero Tiffin and Josephine Langford bring Hardin and Tessa to life in the best PG-13 way that the big screen could have done. I still feel their portrayal of the characters was spot on! The book though is much more TV-MA.

The dynamic between Tessa and Hardin is FIRE! This was a guilty pleasure sort of book for me. Yes, I didn't agree with every decision made by Tessa. Yes, I got irritated at times that she wasn't more honest with herself and didn't treat Noah with more respect. Yes I was so frustrated that Hardin and Tessa couldn't communicate! But once you understand the why behind that, then it tugs on your heart strings. And then in one word....HARDIN. So, I wasn't too harsh on her. I mean....just read for yourself and you'll see what I mean.

Do yourself a major favor if you're new to this series - read the book BEFORE watching the movie, if at all possible. If you're like me though, and saw the movie first, then also do yourself a favor and just READ THE BOOK.

Top Favorite Quotes:
It's strange to crave and hate someone at the same time.

I hate him one minute and want to kiss him the next.

He makes me laugh and cry, yell and scream, but most of all he makes me feel alive.

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.

"...I want you. More than I have ever wanted anyone or anything in my entire life."

"You aren't my type, just the way that I am not yours. But that's why we are good for each other - we are so different, yet we're the same."

"You told me once that I bring out the worst in you. Well, you bring out the best in me. {...} I want you to think I am worthy of you; I want you to want me the way I do you. I want to fight with you, even scream at each other until one of us admits we are wrong. I want to make you laugh, and listen to you ramble about classic novels. I just...I need you."

I somehow know it is the calm before the storm, but right now Hardin is my anchor. I just pray that he doesn't pull me under.

"It's you. You're the person that I love most in the world."

I love him, every part of him. All versions of him. Mostly, I like who I have become with him; we have both been changed for the better by each other.

Language: 3 (high)
Mature Content: 3 (high)
Final Rating: 5