After - Anna Todd

After by Anna Todd
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Blurb (on back of book): 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?
Now newly revised and expanded, Anna Todd’s After fanfiction racked up 1 billion reads online and captivated readers across the globe. Experience the Internet’s most talked-about book for yourself!
There was the time before Tessa met Hardin, and then there’s everything AFTER ... Life will never be the same.

MY OPINION: *****

I'm going to be completely honest here: I truly loved and enjoyed this book.

You know how something can be so BAD that it's just GOOD? No? Maybe that's just me. But wow, this book was SOOOO bad but I loved it so much because of it.

As an avid reader of Wattpad books and an extreme lover of book romance, this book really hit home. I was so excited to hear that a book that I would generally only be able to read online was published and was being made into a movie. I still haven't seen it but I'm planning to pretty soon (what with all the Avengers drama this week, I'm sure tickets won't be hard to get).

This is the most cliche, horrible, disgusting, and amazing book ever. I'm going to start with characters and then move on to plot and everything that I thought about literally 582 pages of this book. And before I start, I'm just going to put it out there: I'm a teenage girl addicted to reading cheesy/cringey romance books so I mean, don't judge me. I'm sure if I were to reread this in a few years, my thoughts about it would change but for now I would like to document my teenage opinions.

1. CHARACTERS

Our protagonist is extreme-good-girl Tessa Young, who's just gone off to college and has gotten away from home for basically the first time. She has a good-boy boyfriend who is literally perfect in every way, except he's just too good. I feel like there's always something so much more attractive about a bad boy than a good one. I don't know why, it's true, as is obvious to any Wattpad reader.

I've spent literally half my life on Wattpad and this book felt exactly like anything else I've read on there. However, I continue to read those stories because I LOVE them. Therefore, I wasn't angry at the cliche tropes in this book that follow every other Wattpad story.

Tessa is an extreme good girl. She's barely ever worn skinny jeans, she's a virgin, she doesn't shave above her knees because it makes her "skanky", which I looked askance at, and her boyfriend and her have done basically nothing together and don't plan to until after marriage. Ugh, if I had a boyfriend for six years that I just ended up marrying without any other boyfriends and never getting to experience variety, I would have felt stifled my entire life.

Anyways, she goes off to college and is expected to keep her good-girl status by her mother, whose husband left her and so she tries to make her daughter perfect and everything that her mother is. Tessa's roommate, Steph, is completely different from Tessa and Ms. Young does not approve. However, you can't just change roommates like that and Tessa stays with Steph, who isn't as bad as she seems. I hated how her mother automatically judged somebody for having tattoos, etc, because it's as if you're just judging a book by its cover.

Then Tessa meets Steph's group of friends who are all tattooed and all different from her. And in that group of friends is the infamous bad-boy, manwhore, dangerous Harry Styles Hardin Scott who Tessa just can't seem to stay away from.

Now, if you didn't know, this book started on Wattpad as HARRY STYLES FANFICTION. Yes, the 1D member with the curly hair and cute British accent whose the lead singer of only the most famous boy band of this generation ever. And then it reached 1.5 BILLION VIEWS on Wattpad and she decided to change a couple of characters names and publish the dang thing and BOOM we have a movie. Like, if you didn't know, this series has a fandom name: the AFTERNATORS. Like, this is how extreme this goes.

We also meet Zayn Malik Zed who Harry Hardin seems very wary of.

Basically, long story short:

TESSA TRIES TO STAY AWAY FROM HARRY/HARDIN BUT OBVIOUSLY SHE CAN'T BECAUSE LET'S REMEMBER THIS IS A CLASSIC GOOD GIRL/BADBOY STORY

HARRY/HARDIN FINDS OUT SHE'S A VIRGIN THROUGH A COLLEGE GAME OF TRUTH OR DARE hahahahaha AND THEN SUDDENLY HE CAN'T STAY AWAY EITHER

HE BASICALLY GIVES HER HER FIRST TASTE OF PLEASURE AND BOOM THEY REALIZE THEY CAN'T BE JUST FRIENDS (IT GOES FRIENDS THEN ENEMIES THEN LOVERS THEN FRIENDS THEN ENEMIES THEN LOVERS ALLLLLLLLLLL THE WAY THROUGH)

And then we get to

THE ENDING:

I actually wanted to cry. I know because I spoiled myself by accidentally reading a news article about the movie what happens in the next book but that still was so depressing. I did not see it coming at all and I can usually spot Wattpad plot twists. I guess I forgot what I was reading and I was like WOWOW OMG.

AHHHH THE BET IS SO AWFUL OMG BUT HE DEFINITELY LOVES HER BUT LIKE STILL WOW 

And then when she got in Zayn/Zed's car at the very end, my heart broke. 

THE PLOT:

Harry/Hardin basically wants her and Tessa can't stay away. She experiences her first pleasures with this boy, and she gives everything to him. She figures out she loves him but knows that he doesn't date and yet she can't seem to push her feelings away. Wow, this had SOOOO much drama but I guess it's meant for teens/young adults so like, it's to be expected. I personally loved the DRAMA because it was just so interesting but like, sometimes it was SOOO intense. And it moved so quickly. It was like fight-kiss-fight-kiss-fight-kiss for 582 pages straight.

WARNINGS:

Let me just put this out there right now:

Harry/Hardin emotionally abuses Tessa throughout the entire book. I do not condone this at all but it's a fairly common thing in Wattpad stories. It's definitely not romanticized though I can see why some readers may find it attractive when he's angry and manipulative and cunning. But I didn't particularly like it because the way he treated her was SO awful. It was like, he led her to believe that he felt one way and then after he got what he wanted from her, BOOM, he laughs at her and manipulates her feelings, and then makes her cry every five seconds (honestly me). While he never hits her or anything and he'll defend her, he still treats her awfully.

ALSO, if you cannot handle GRAPHIC scenes, DO NOT read this book. It's a typical teen romance novel and there's a LOTTT. The whole book is basically centered around Tessa's losing her virginity but I like the way that it addressed the fact that college (and even high school) is when people start to experiment. Now, being a single pringle, I have like no experience but I like how this book acknowledged the fact that this is happening and it's not something to be shamed. Like, I know this book is compared to 50 Shades but this was NOT that bad (I've definitely read worse). However, I've only read parts of 50 Shades on a dare so I personally don't think it was that extreme, though I didn't find 50 Shades that bad either.

I want to write SOOO much more, but a) I'm running out of room, b) I'm in Journalism and am supposed to be writing a sports article -- and still don't have an idea, and c) I really want to read the second book and see the movie.

READ THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE EXTREME ROMANCE, OVERDRAMATIC EVERYTHING, FIGHTS AND MAKEUPS, ARE OKAY WITH GRAPHIC SCENES, LOVE WATTPAD, AND ADORE GOOD GIRL/ BAD BOY TROPES.

If you don't fit in any of those categories, I would not recommend. I know a lot of people hate this book but I personally enjoyed it more than I expected to. I do see why people hated it and some of the graphic scenes just made me laugh with how badly written they were but WOW, I loved it.

Main Character: Tessa
Sidekick(s): Hardin, Zed, Steph, etc
Villain(s): Parents, change, growing up, bad boys, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book is all very real to life.