What would life be like "After"? -Book Review-

This is my first official book review in our blogs. I have done a couple of reviews

in my Instagram stories, and it had kind of given me a lot of thought processing as to how to come about a review. Now, I am giving it a shot in my very own blog.

It took a lot of energy of mine in thinking whether to post the review about this book or not, but I have collected all my courage, going with my instincts to publish the review on this book series that i finished within just two weeks.

July was a pretty hard month for me, I faced a lot of challenges and was facing the extreme of stress, I badly needed a break from work and fortunately received a week from work. That's when it happened to me, that when I am with books I actually feel better. I have not touched a book for quite some time (may be about 4 months), and it's high time that I immerse some of my quality time in reading one. Chose this book because this was the first and last book I read in Wattpad. Three years back, I used Wattpad, because I heard you don't have to buy books, plus you have a vast choice of books to choose from, to read. I liked the idea of trying different genres, and the books can be handled automatically and digitally. So downloaded the app, and when I entered my choice of genres as favorites, the first suggestion that hit me was this one called "After". A fun fact is that it was a Fan Fiction of One-Direction. The main characters in the Book were named with One Direction band members. I was intrigued once I got to know the fact and jumped right in to the book.

But, unfortunately I hated reading from the tab or even through my phone. I missed holding a book in my hands and reading. the obsession I have over physical book is something that's indescribable, hence i stopped halfway through. I had got the books ordered through an online store and had kept it for the right time to jump in. This vacation was not only the right time, but it was the best time to lose my thoughts on stressful things and get relaxed. So, started right in and was done with all 5 books of the series within 2 weeks.

When I said at the beginning that I had to gather all the courage to write the review, it was for a reason. You will know it when you read further. Ha ha. Not trying to act all weird and not trying to be judgmental too, but I think I will be judged for putting up a review like this, for sure and you'll know what, I don't care. This is my personal view on the book. 😊

I am  one-directioner ever since their inauguration. Whatever that's involved with 1-D, I wouldn't miss, may it be a music video, an interview, their performances (Live), Fan made videos and what not. So couldn't and wouldn't miss this book too. Also another fun fact is that this book hit 1 billion reads online which in fact is a record. Especially for a fan-fiction on Wattpad, it's unimaginable to have that much online reads for a fiction as such. I guess major part of the credit should go for 1-D because it's their names that had drawn the attention of most of the readers to read the book to see how the characters have been showcased in the book. This book was a trend setter and a trade mark back then, because almost all the social media platforms had the images of this books with reviews after reviews, which again got the best of me to try reading after I get the physical book. But time, Where do I go for it, amidst the chaos of online lessons, school work, lesson preparations, examination paper setting etc. But here I am writing and presenting the review of the Book "After" which was the favorite of most, I guess I am too late, but never mind, there are people out there who haven't read it yet. 😻

Let me 1st say the actual character names and their 1-D names in the fiction. 

Hardin Scott- Harry Styles, Zed Evans - Zayn Malik, Landon Gibson - Liam Payne, Nate - Niall Horan and Logan - Louis Tomlinson.

This series consisted 5 books named, "After", "After We Collided", "After We fell", "After Ever Happy", "Before". The Author of the book is Anna Todd, who herself started as a reader on Wattpad and literally ended up as a fiction writer on Wattpad, due to the super duper hit of the book, she started publishing and doing sequels of the same.

Plot - A young girl named Theresa Young, being brought up by a single mother, is driven by an already destined ambition and direction towards her future, moves to the city for her higher studies. Whilst trying to adapt herself to the new college, freshman dorm, her new room mate and her friends, she falls heads over heels in love with her roommate's friend, who is witty and rude. What sort of consequences awaits her future and what decision would drive her towards her ambition? Is she going to take love over her career or either way is the question and the remaining plot. I just don't want to give away much, the rest is for you to enjoy (may be).

What most of the reviews would start with is by stating their favorites and love on the lead characters. Either people would praise the entire characters that appear in the book or at least only the leads. I am going to contradict, I am going to bring in a twist to the review, and this is the 1st time I am going to state something like this, because I have never hated the lead characters in any of the books that I have read so far. This is the first time, and I hope that this is the last time too. I hated Tessa Young and Hardin Scott to the core. The hatred is indescribable and unimaginable. 😑😑😑

Tessa Young is immature, whiny, irresponsible, annoying, pathetic, childish, a

stuck up, Shallow, vapid, turd, these are just a few words that came to my mind when I wanted to describe her. There's more to the list, which you'll could come up when you'll read. When you go through the book, you will realize that Tessa spends most of the times in the book either crying or come up with these lame reasons to cry upon. 

On the other hand, Hardin Scott is annoying, bizarre, wicked, rude, clinger, psychopathic, cocky, aggressive, hot tempered, dark, crazy as shit. In their relationship, it's as if Hardin is the feminine and Tessa takes the upper hand always and acts all masculine. To be honest, it's Hardin who is more pathetic than Tessa.

The relationship they share is not only unhealthy, but it is also downright awful,

terrifying, unbalanced, and always one sided. Their relationship is far etched than to be called as romantic. I hated them when both of them were separated and away from each other, but you know what, I hate them both more when they are together. They are toxic to each other when they are together, trust me, I have never ever read such a toxic couple characterization in my life ever.

The plot after a certain point is just the repetition. Hardin does something awful that's unforgivable, they get in to an awful and heated argument, get separated, Hardin returns and asks for another chance, the kindest soul Tessa agrees and gives him a chance, gets back and the cycle repeats. This getting back and forth repetition is what made me sick by the end of the book and I wondered whether all relationships were of this nature. As assumed, When you read the plot most of you guys would have guessed it would be of this nature, as the series have 5 books. This is not the best of writing, but nevertheless the worst. I have read the worsest of the books too, which to be honest, I have put them down and even tried tearing them down into bits and pieces which cannot be bound back into an original form. 

There's no originality, uniqueness or even personality added to this book as it's the same old story somewhat. You'll might wonder why I am writing a review on the book where I hated all the characters the most. I think I have been mean while describing the characters according to my point of view. But here I am mentioning that I have read all 5 books within 2 weeks. (each book at least having 600 pages). You'll might think and ask why I didn't stop reading. That's the whole point here. Even though I have this stereotypical perspective to the plot, the writing didn't allow me to put the book down, not even for a moment. It was like watching a nasty scene like thousands of people dying in a natural disaster, where I was meant to not watch, but still I watch inquisitively. This book is nasty, where the leads continuously do nasty stuff to each other to get the worst out of each other, but I still didn't get a chance to put the book down. You don't see certain things coming in the book and I guess that's what kept me reading the book even after hating Hardin and Tessa. The climax of the book/ending of the book, unexpected for all the buildup that was created at the 4th book starting. Never knew that was coming towards, yet it just came BOOM!

This is a book with the same old concept like other normal romantic novels, with

extreme sexual attention and activities, where the leads are trapped in a cluster of co-dependent relationship that would make Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele look better from 50 Shades of Grey, Seriously, trust me or not!

There's a lot of influence from other well known literature in this series, as both Hardin and Tessa are English majors and works in publishing. Lines like, "Nothing can change the way I feel about you", "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" from Wuthering Heights, these were used frequently to make a point, but till date I didn't understand what points they were focusing on by mentioning the above over and over again. 

Besides the book giving ideas like - Its okay to cheat on someone if you lose

interest in them, It's okay to chose an abusive and toxic relationship over a normal and healthy one, It's okay to slut shame or even body shame someone regardless of the situation and location; this book had stood alone for most of the readers as favorites. I agree with the point that the book kept me always seated at the tip of the seat, it made me get involved in all the scenes. Most of the times, i just wanted to get into the book, shake the crap out of Tessa, slap her and ask her to grow up, or even beat the shit out of Hardin for all those freaking shit he had done to girls. It was that captivating, but I hated most of the characters in it. I think it's okay to have contradicting thoughts yet like a book. I am one with that perspective and here we go with the series for the review.

I have watched the movies too, which was taken based on these books. What I hate about movies that are based on the books is that not all scenes that are in the book can be contained in the movie. Some of the most emotional and important scenes would be missing in the movie. This after series movies are a huge disappointment!😞😞😞 Want to know why? Because OMG, the movies are so messed up, One scene from somewhere is connected to another scene from another part of the book. The most tensed part of the book ain't shot for the movie, for god knows what reason. I most probably think because of the time constraints. Unlike Indian movies, the run time of Hollywood movies are maximum 1 hour and 45 minutes and they try covering most of the parts of the book, but most of the times fail to input the most breathtaking scenes from the book! But there are a lot of people who loved the movie too. Again perspective differs. I guess the audience who appreciated the movie were the one's who hadn't read the books. If you had read the movie, then definitely you'd agree with me. Also another disturbing part about the movie is that, the characters keep changing, this I found only in this movie. The faces aren't constant. The third sequel is yet to come next month, yet already a few new faces are replacing the characters, which I think is a shame! But no matter what, regardless of all this, i am still anxiously waiting to watch the next three movies of the series. Ha Ha, crazy ain't I?? I know, I am like that only! 😮😕😌

I wouldn't recommend this book for young readers as the book is filled with explicit extreme sexual activities, a lot of swearing, drug and alcohol references. Too much of adulterated content doesn't allow me to recommend this at all for younger audience. Adults who could handle all of the above are suitable for reading this series. There's nothing to be embarrassed in reading this series though. I thought I would be embarrassed to even write a review on a series like this, but it's just a fiction, So give it a go, try it and lemme know whether you guys liked it or not!

My rating on this book would be - 3.5/5 (just because it kept me going and I was intrigued by the way the story is woven)