The Beginning of After [Hardcover]

Jennifer Castle (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 6, 2011

"Anyone who's had something truly crappy happen to them will tell you: It's all about Before and After. What I'm talking about here is the ka-pow, shake-you-to-your-core-and-turn-your-bones-to-plastic kind of crappy."

A 2012 YALSA "Best Fiction for Young Adults" Selection
A 2012 Chicago Public Library "Best of the Best Books for Teens" Selection
A 2011 ABC (Association of Booksellers for Children) New Voices Selection

Sixteen-year-old Laurel's world changes instantly when her parents and brother are killed in a terrible car accident. Behind the wheel is the father of her bad-boy neighbor, David Kaufman, whose mother is also killed. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Laurel navigates a new reality in which she and her best friend grow apart, boys may or may not be approaching her out of pity, overpowering memories lurk everywhere, and Mr. Kaufman is comatose but still very much alive. Through it all there is David, who swoops in and out of Laurel's life and to whom she finds herself attracted against her better judgment. She will forever be connected to him by their mutual loss--a connection that will change them both in unexpected ways.
Jennifer Castle's debut novel is a heart-wrenching, surprisingly witty testament to how drastically life can change in the span of a single moment.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This first novel takes some of its emotional cues from Gayle Forman's breakout novel IF I STAY (2009) and will be well received by Sarah Dessen fans...Laurel's grieving process is believable and will resonate with all who have lost someone they love." --Booklist

"A difficult story well told, Jennifer Castle's debut novel opens a window onto the process of loss, transition and recovery...The touching, insightful story of a young woman struggling to put her life back together after a terrible tragedy." --Shelf Awareness

"It is fascinating to watch these two young people try to make sense of their losses and struggle to figure out how to move on...the journey offers a complex look at the aftermath of a tragedy." --VOYA (Voices of Youth Advocates)

"...the detailed writing and smart, realistically cool characters will be appealing to many girls...Offer this to teens who are waiting for the next Sarah Dessen book." --School Library Journal

“Castle expertly guides the narrative through the various stages of grief, refusing to shrink away from even the most difficult areas, where life and death collide. An honest look at grief that is both achingly real and powerfully hopeful.” (Kirkus Reviews )

From the Author

Questions I'm Frequently Asked About "The Beginning of After":

What, or who, inspired you to write "The Beginning of After"?

I'm happy to say I've never experienced a trauma like the one Laurel does in this book. But I've always been a little obsessed with the idea of "the survivor." You lived while others died. So what do you do with that? How does it color the rest of your life? That's just super-interesting to me. Then, years ago, I met a young woman who had lost most of her family in a terrible accident and was devoting her time to volunteer work. I didn't know her well, but I couldn't stop thinking about her story. This was also shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when everyone I knew was sharing this collective grief, trying to find our paths in a reshaped world. So that combination sparked a story idea for me, about a teenage girl who survives one of the worst imaginable traumas -- the loss of her family -- and how she's now permanently connected to the other "survivor" of the tragedy, her neighbor and former childhood friend.

As the book slowly evolved, it became about other things too. Like how Laurel's grief can never be totally her own; living in a small community and being in high school, she has to get through this trauma with all eyes on her. And how we can create our own families, out of the people around us, when we need to. The cool thing about working on a book for a long time is that you come across a lot of different points of inspiration along the way, and the story grows with your experience.


What kind of research did you do for this book?

I did a lot of reading about how teens grieve, and also about "survivor guilt." I read a few memoirs by young people who have experienced tragedy on this scale. I picked the brain of a therapist friend who works with people overcoming trauma. I didn't go crazy -- I think there's such a thing as too much research. Beyond that, I just made sure I knew my characters as well as I could, and that I knew how to be true to them in the different ways they cope. When a reader who has dealt with grief as a teen tells me they love the book, that I got it just right, it truly means the world to me.


Did you have a "music playlist" while you were writing "The Beginning of After"?

I did build up a long playlist after all the years I spent working on this book. I don't listen to music while I'm actually writing, but I often take "brainstorming walks" with my iPod that will help me think through a problem or just get me in the right frame of mind to work when I get home. Here are some of my favorites:

• "World Spins Madly On" by the Weepies (in my mind, this is the music for the book trailer...even though we never made one!)
• "Cosmic Love" by Florence + The Machine
• "Such Great Heights" by Iron and Wine
• "Breathe Me" by Sia
• "Darklands" by The Jesus and Mary Chain
• "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie
• "The Ghost In You" by The Psychedelic Furs
• "The Scientist" by Coldplay
• "Hometown Glory" by Adele
• "Everything To Me" by Liz Phair

What would you like people to take away from the experience of reading "The Beginning of After"?

I would love for readers to be able to draw some hope and strength from this book -- whatever kind they need. It may seem overdramatic to write about a girl who loses her entire family at once. But in a way, that's just an extreme metaphor for any type of game-changing event that can happen to us in life -- the ones that draw a line between "before" and "after." Maybe that's a divorce, or a personal injury, or a changed relationship, or a move to another state. Whatever it is and however "truly crappy" it seems, I believe we can survive it. Maybe we can't see it right away, but it might open up fresh opportunities and bring new and surprising people to us.

Are you working on another book?

My next book, entitled "You Look Different In Real Life," will be published by HarperTeen on June 4, 2013; a companion digital-original short story, "Playing Keira," will be available for e-readers from HarperTeen Impulse on May 7, 2013. I'm currently working on my third novel, eating lots of dark chocolate, and trying unsuccessfully to switch from black tea to herbal.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen (September 6, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061985791
• ISBN-13: 978-0061985799
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jennifer Castle received her B.A. in Creative Writing at Brown University and worked as a celebrity publicist's assistant, an advertising copywriter, and a struggling screenwriter (yes, that's an actual job) before falling into a niche producing websites for kids and teens. Her first novel, THE BEGINNING OF AFTER was a 2012 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection as well as a Chicago Public Library "Best of the Best" book. Her next novel, YOU LOOK DIFFERENT IN REAL LIFE, is forthcoming from HarperTeen in June 2013. She lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her husband and two daughters.

You can visit her online at www.jennifercastle.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful writing, relatable characters and a heartfelt story June 13, 2012

By surfergirl

Format:Hardcover

Sixteen-year-old Laurel Meisner's life is about to turn on its head. After the death of her entire family in a car accident, Laurel tries to pretend it's life as usual. She aces her SATs, gets asked to prom and tucks her grief deep down where it can't touch her. On the surface, Laurel seems fine, but the cracks in her composure are deepening with every day, with every breath. Each time her grief threatens to surface, she shoves it away, "pain go away." And it does, only to resurface twice as fast and twice as violently the next time.

Gorgeously written and insightful, The Beginning of After (Harper Teen) is a novel that will access your deepest emotions, even if you've never experienced loss. It will take you on a journey of healing that is as heartbreaking as it is beautiful. Laurel's process of dealing with her grief is mainly one of trial and error, but what the author does brilliantly is to juxtapose Laurel's process with that of her childhood friend David--who loses his mother in the same accident--and whose process is the exact opposite of Laurel's. He runs, while she stays. His life is broken on the outside. Hers is broken on the inside. Still, the two of them manage to come together despite the traumatic event that should only have driven them apart, and learn how to finally forgive and let go of the past.

In The Beginning of After, be prepared to laugh out loud, to rage, to cry, and everything else in between. An intense and honest portrayal of teen life after trauma, this is a contemporary novel that won't let you go once you've turned the first page.

See this review and check out my interview with Jennifer Castle in TheLoop, a local Westchester periodical. [...]

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a thriller, feels like a documentary August 20, 2011

By RobynJC VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

"Anyone who's ever had something truly crappy happen to them will tell you: It's all about Before and After. What I'm talking about here is the ka-pow, shake-you-to-your-core-and-turn-your-bones-to plastic kind of crappy. One part of your life unyokes from the other. I use this word, unyoke, because I spent my last few hours of Before studying the "Us" on an SAT vocabulary list."

If you're trying to decide whether you want to read this book, it's simple: just read the first page or so. Then try to put it down. It won't be possible. By the end of the first 10 pages, Laurel, a high-achieving, insecure adolescent girl with a private crush on the bad boy next door, finds herself suddenly orphaned. Her entire family is lost in a car crash - in a car driven by the father of that long time crush, himself the only survivor of his family now. It's the most dramatic start to a story that one can imagine, but the amazing thing about this book is that Jennifer Castle makes it all feel incredibly real. Reading this book, I felt like I was in the story with Laurel as she went through this event: sitting on the sofa while I tried to absorb the initial shock, feeling all eyes on me on my first day back to school, trying to figure out what to say to the stunned grandmother who is suddenly my only family in the world, wanting to be normal again but losing control every time I try... and through it all, trying to figure out what I think of the boy down the street whose father killed my family, and who is the only one in all of this who could possibly understand.

The Beginning of After reads like a thriller -- I raced through it, wanting so bad for everything to turn out okay for Laurel -- but it feels like a documentary. The author writes with equal conviction about everyday, ordinary details - like trying to figure out how to start an email to a boy you like and finally addressing it to his dog -- to the most profound questions, like the counselor who helps Laurel to begin coming to terms with her family's loss with one simple question: "Do you think your relationship with your parents and your brother is over?" I won't give away the ending to that scene but it was one of the best, most true, scenes about loss that I've ever read.

This book gets a lot of comparisons to Gayle Forman, If I Stay. I read that book (and loved it), and the comparison is obvious - teenage girl loses her entire family. But Gayle Forman's book is about the moment of loss, taking place entirely in the first few days of grief. Did you ever wonder what Mia did after she woke up? The Beginning of After tackles that story: the beginning of learning how to live again when you've lost everything you've ever known. It was beautiful and true and I can't wait to read Jennifer Castle's next book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good August 16, 2011

By Book lover VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I really enjoyed this book. It was an emotional roller coaster that I know will stay with me for a very long time.

Laurel is the main character here and she must figure out how to live after a tragic accident takes her family away from her. David, her neighbor, is thrown into the same situation since his father was the one driving the car that night of the accident. Laurel and David are not close, they run in two different groups and pretty much avoid each other. Well when tragedy strikes they find that maybe they might need each other after all.

I did like the characters for the most part and I felt like the author did a great job at describing Laurels pain. All she wants is to be normal but how can she find normal among people who look at like she is breakable. This book really made me think about death and I really liked the questions and sessions with the therapist, they were so real. All in all a good book that shows just how hard it is to lose someone and how one can cope with all the pain.