Afterward

by Jennifer Mathieu

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
This is my second Jennifer Mathieu book, and while I didn't love this one quite as much as Devoted (my review for that is here!), I still really enjoyed this one! Definitely solidifies the author's place on my "must read" list.

Anyway, Afterward is a dual POV story about a boy who was abducted and has now returned (Ethan) and a girl (Caroline) whose brother was also taken by Ethan's captor, In Caroline's search for clues about her brother Dylan (who has autism and is unable to relay what happened to him), her story and Ethan's collide.

These two could not be more different, basically. Ethan is all kinds of traumatized of course, but he also has a completely invested family and a team of doctors who are there to help him try to process this. I loved Ethan's doctor and the way therapy was presented. While Ethan's doctor was so, so good for him, his mother's therapist was a little more... generic in comparison, and I liked that it didn't make it seem that therapy was a cure-all, or that all therapists were as awesome as Ethan's. There was also mention of how it was easy for Ethan to have access to such services because his parents had money; while Dylan didn't have those same resources. So sad, but also so accurate, unfortunately.

Caroline on the other hand is basically Team Dylan, because her family is a mess. Caroline is so fiercely loyal and loving to Dylan, it made my heart both happy and sad at the same time. All she wanted was for Dylan to be okay, and that was the one thing that was out of her control. It broke my heart that she went through so much of this alone, without a good family system or a good friend support system.

At the start, Caroline was incredibly unlikable, but she grew a lot as the book went on. Her friendship with Ethan had lots of realistic hills and valleys, as you'd expect for two people who'd been through so much. I think Dylan's autism was well portrayed, as no two cases are identical, I think the author did a remarkable job.

I didn't quite connect to the characters as much as I'd have liked, which is really the only thing holding me back from giving this book a full five stars. Because I wasn't as connected, I didn't have as much of an emotional investment- though I still had some emotional investment, it wasn't quite as much as I was expecting. Otherwise, I thought that the pacing was awesome, and the time jumps worked really well in the story.

Bottom Line: This was incredibly readable, and shines a great light on therapy. The story of Caroline and Ethan, as well as their families, was definitely a journey I am glad I took.

*Copy provided by publisher for review