After

A reviewer

Sam R- After- Have some books every just jump out at you? Don¿t they make you want to never stop reading? One of these books is After by, Francine Prose. It happens to be one of my favorites. As soon as you start reading you are sucked in. After has an unbelievable plot, deep characters, and twists and turns on every flip of the page. Boom! As soon as you open the book you are dropped into a hectic high school classroom. Everybody¿s cell phones are buzzing. Nobody knows what is happening but soon as they do they will wish they had never of heard. There had been a school shooting at a nearby high school. There was many fatalities including the gun men. This later affects their school. The state tries to deal with it by sending a crisis counselor to the school. But he doesn¿t live up to his title. He is more of a mind controlling evil person that takes over the school with gloom and despair. Soon things go crazy, the school security becomes tighter than one of an airport. Students get in trouble for the most ridiculous things. Soon some start to disappear. With everyone being watched no one is sure who they can trust. One of the students under the eye of the ¿crisis counselor¿ is our main character Tom. His new goal at school is to stay out of trouble. Along with his friends Silas and Brian he tries to understand why the school is turning into a prison and stay out of the light. I like these three characters. Tom is sort of the leader the one with the plans, guts, and the most smarts. Brian would fit well under the trusty sidekick category. He is very loyal to his friends and watches their backs. Silas, well what can I say about Silas. He is very paranoid about everything. I think he is mostly this way because he is a drug addict. These friends call themselves the ¿smart jocks¿. These three characters fit together perfectly. Although I would have to say my favorite is Tom. He is also the most similar to me. I always try to be the leader, I get pretty good grades, and I like to play sports. After is phenomenal book with an outstanding plot line, complicated characters, and makes you long to know what will happen next. It is one of my personal favorites that can put your life in perspective. It is an exciting drama and mystery that anyone can get into. This is a must read that reached out to me. I bet you will want to read it over and over again.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Dissapointed.

I was pretty dissapointed with this book and also by all the "good" reviews it had. I didn't even finish the book. I was about two chapters away from the end before I said, "Alright, I've had enough." In my opinion, everything about it was unrealistic. I understand schools have to take extreme measures when a school shooting occurs only 50 miles away, but this would never happen. I'm sorry if you liked this book and you disagree, I'm just trying to help somebody out who was planning on reading this. If you like unrealistic books, you'll love this one. But I would never recommend this book to anybody (unless I didn't like them.)

Francine Prose's After: A Great Book For Teens!

One interesting thing about the book After is that Tom, the main character, does not go to the high school that had the shooting. In fact he went to a school 50 miles away from Pleasant Valley, the school with the shooting. Tom goes to a high school called Central outside of Boston Massachusetts and when the shooting happens at Pleasant Valley Central takes multiple actions to keep that from happening at their school. One action was bringing in a grief and crisis counselor named Dr. Willner who has made Central seem like a complete prison with guards, metal detectors, random drug tests, and all new rules such as not being able to wear or read certain things!
I really enjoyed reading this book because of the emotions expressed by Tom and his friends! Mrs. Prose made the book very intense with the views of the students and their feelings about Pleasant Valley and Dr. Willner. The one thing I didn't like about the book is she made some characters seem vacant minded about the situation going on at Central. This novel made me think a lot about how much family and friends mean to people because Tom lost his mother and now that his father is dating Clara he doesn't have a lot of time for Tom and also when he finds out that Silas could be sentenced to the highest extent of the law for doing drugs you can only think of how depressed Tom and the rest of the gang become! Over all I really enjoyed reading After by Francine Prose because it was very thought provoking and very deep! If there was ever a sequel to this book I would love to read it!

After: A Gripping Novel

The novel After is a gripping novel by Francine Prose. It's a book that you can never let go of. The novel is full of suspense and the plot has twists and turns. After tells about a school, Pleasant Valley, however, most of the major conflicts are happening at a school fifty miles away called Central High School.
Cell phones are ringing and people are frantic about their children. Central High School is a school fifty miles away from the shooting site. Central High School hires a grief and crisis counselor, Dr. Willner, who ruins and enforced the lives of the students at Central. The major action and conflict with Dr. Willner revolves around four friends: Tom Bishop, Brian, Avery, and Silas. There many twists and turns in the plot of After.
I thought After was a novel with a great plot, very descriptive settings, and interesting characters. The author, Francine Prose, was very good at planting the visual images of the novel in our brains. When I was reading this book I couldn't put it down because of the vivid scenes in the book. To me, After was like a movie inside my head.
I highly recommend this novel to anyone. It is very entertaining, gripping, and descriptive. I can truly and fully confirm that After is a great novel for everyone to read and enjoy.

Not the ending i hoped for

the book was ok. I still would have liked to know of what actually happened to the kids from different schools.

ok

I got this book looking for a thrill with a great ending that u never saw coming but this book did not have that. the writing was good, the charaacters were good and the begginign and middle were very good but the whole time i was reading i was so excited for that ending that i never would have guessed...but that didn thappen. the ending didnt explain anything and just left you hanging with tons of questions that should have been answered.

take it or leave it

awsome book...i would recommend it but i felt kind of sad at the end like what happaneds know...what happaneds to the school and the chracters parents...i feel there could have been a litlle more writing tords the end or at least a second book cause i really enjoyed it. I liked the fact that it was a thriller but there was still comedy and romance.

After.

I think after was a really great book. it was deff a page turner. I kept reading the whole way through but i felt when it was finished i was just left hanging. i wish it ended a little better. but other than that great let down it was a amazing book.

Good for well-adjusted 15-18 year olds

After was a very quick read, easily finished in a short amount of time but what I found was the chilling was the realism. Yes, the topic and the way it's written would appeal to teens, ages 15-18, but parents should be encouraged to read it first to screen it. (I tend to do this for my children, just because I'm, well, the mom). I couldn't put the book down, and read it during a medical procedure so it is very easy to follow. I could see how it would come about after the Columbine tragedy, but it plants a seed in the reader's mind, like could we really be so controlled by mail, email, news, etc.?

The school changing its way soo rapidly .. thats somthing i like ...

im not the reading type.. but i just couldnt stop readin .. in colombia i could imagen my self in that situation. i enjoyed every min of it even though i think the ending could of been different

Very good.

According to the summary, this book did not really seem too interesting. I somehow started it, and realized it was very, very unique. The story is so plausible and it makes you have to read more of it.

Freakishly the best.

Even though I'm just a boy living in the ghetto of Chicago and i never read, this book got me into reading. It's THAT GOOD. I just loved the emotion from the characters from the fear of the students at Central High to the love between Becca and Tom. So many high schoolers can somehow relate to this story. its easy to compare to because it somehow teaches how there are changes and how far it gets taken. And how major changes can make students react in different ways. Also, how easy something can be taken away from you. You learn to aprreciate what you got before its gone. It's just great and perfect. Because you never know whats going to happen After.

After reading the book

I believe this book was amazingly gripping, kind of like the murder mysteries. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody, though I do not recommend for younger children.

excellent conflict

The plot was suspenseful throughout the entire book. The characters in the book are in high school facing harsh rules that they need to follow because of a school shooting that happened near their town. Certain colors couldn't be worn, specific items of clothing were banned, and it affected the lives of the people in this high school because they felt like these rules were taking over their lives. I really enjoyed this book because you could relate to the kids attending this high school. Even if you've never experienced school shootings in your state, or unfair rules that you needed to follow, you could still relate to the students. You knew how they were feeling at every moment, and you actually felt like you were at the high school too, having to follow the same rules they were. The ending kind of disappointed me though. It left you hanging, and made me want to know what would happen next. Maybe that's a good thing, but I was so into the book that I wanted to know what happened to the characters after! This was a quick read but a very intriguing quick read. People, whether they're in high school or not, will find this book to be interesting and full of surprises.

School Shootings within Fifty Miles

At the beginning of After by Francine Prose there are teens in a classroom in Central High School and in unison, their cell phones went off. People were calling them to inform them that there were shootings at a school fifty miles away from them. The school that the shootings were at was Pleasant Valley High School. Central High School started getting very cautious to make sure that the shootings didn¿t happen at their school. The school started making a lot of new rules, including random drug tests, not being able to wear red, and no cell phones in school. In one of the random drug tests, Tom¿s friend was tested and they figured out that he had been doing drugs. Tom, along with three friends, plays basketball for Central High School. Tom¿s friend is no longer allowed to be part of the basketball team. The students do not agree with the new rules. Read the book to figure out what the students do! One thing that I disliked about After was that there were too many new rules and it was hard to follow all of them. Every day there would be like two new rules and I didn¿t know that there were new rules. One thing that I liked about the book was that there were five main characters and you could easily distinguish the difference between them. After by Francine Prose is not part of a series. The people that would enjoy reading this book would be teenagers. Teenagers would enjoy it because it is about a thing that could happen to them at any time. It could happen to any school and it really shows you how much of an impact it puts on other people.

Creepy Book With Complex Plot

If you like bone chilling stories about murder, trickery, and what's supposedly hypnotism, then this is the book for you! It's mind bending and has a complex structure for only the most hardcore readers. Seriously... READ THIS TODAY!!

Empty

This book was an easy read, but not as exciting as it sounds. The begining was realistic and kept your interest, but after that it was undeveloped characters trying to figure out an undeveloped puzzle. The end left you with no explanations and a lot of plot holes. As a teen reading this in Honors English, I thought it was rather pointless.

Okay, but disappointing

I thought After was going to be a really interesting read, but it wasn't that great. I think most of the book was unrealistic. Also, the author made the story more boring by sticking to one phrase. Meaning, she always wrote 'And Silas said' or 'And Avery said'. She should've used differnt tags. It wasn't a completey horrible book, but it wasn't as great as I anticipated it to be.

Great!

This book was a satisfying one. Really, it was. It held my attention the whole time. There was always something that the author wasn't telling me, and I was always keen on finding out what that was. And the plot was amazing! It intrigued me a lot. Everything was just written so well.

After review

I really liked this book. It held my attention and was awesome even though it was kind of creepy and disturbing (in a good way!). I loved the details and how I could relate to the characters