Is The Astonishing Color of After Worth Reading?
Ada’s Score
Emily X.R. Pan's debut novel, published in 2018, follows sixteen-year-old Leigh, a mixed-race Taiwanese-American girl who believes her mother, who died by suicide, has returned to her as a red bird. Grief-stricken and searching for answers, Leigh travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. The novel weaves together magical realism, cultural identity, and a moving portrait of depression across generations with luminous, painterly prose. It is an emotionally immersive and deeply compassionate novel about loss, memory, and the bonds that transcend death.
Episode 7“Pan writes grief in colour. This novel is achingly beautiful — part ghost story, part family odyssey — and it handles mental health with rare tenderness.”
Grief, in the Shape of a Red Bird
Emily X.R. Pan does something genuinely rare here — she makes grief feel both mythic and unbearably intimate, wrapping loss in the colors and rituals of Taiwanese heritage until the two become inseparable. Leigh travels to a country she barely knows, chasing a red bird she is certain is her mother, and Pan trusts the reader to hold that impossible belief right alongside her. This novel broke my heart slowly, the way only the most beautiful books do.
Ada Brief
AI reading intelligence“Pan writes grief in colour. This novel is achingly beautiful — part ghost story, part family odyssey — and it handles mental health with rare tenderness.”
Grief, in the Shape of a Red Bird
Emily X.R. Pan does something genuinely rare here — she makes grief feel both mythic and unbearably intimate, wrapping loss in the colors and rituals of Taiwanese heritage until the two become inseparable. Leigh travels to a country she barely knows, chasing a red bird she is certain is her mother, and Pan trusts the reader to hold that impossible belief right alongside her. This novel broke my heart slowly, the way only the most beautiful books do.
Book Details
- Publisher
- Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
- Published
- January 1, 2018
- Pages
- 241
- Language
- English
Get This Book
Affiliate linksISBN: 9780316464017
Disclosure: ReadAda earns a commission on purchases made through these links, at no extra cost to you.
Ada’s Score
4.4
Ada’s editorial score — not an aggregate of reader reviews.
Common Questions About The Astonishing Color of After
- Is The Astonishing Color of After worth reading?
- Pan writes grief in colour. This novel is achingly beautiful — part ghost story, part family odyssey — and it handles mental health with rare tenderness. Ada rates it 4.4 out of 5.
- How many pages is The Astonishing Color of After?
- The Astonishing Color of After is 241 pages long — around 5–6 hours at an average reading pace.
Ada also recommends
More from Young Adult
Release Me
Tahereh Mafi
Ada’s Score
Behind Five Willows
June Hur
Ada’s Score
The Escape Game
Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
Ada’s Score
Us Dark Few
Alexis Patton
Ada’s Score
Fake Skating
Lynn Painter
Ada’s Score