The After Girls

Ella, Astrid, and Sydney are the best of friends. That all changes then Astrid takes her own life. Ella is the one that finds her. Now, Ella and Sydney are trying to understand the best ways that they can on how they missed the signs that lead to Astrid’s death. Why could they not tell Astrid was depressed? They are after all her friends.


While Sydney wants to mask her pain with alcohol, Ella tries to figure out what clues she missed about Astrid. Ella receives some help in the form of Astrid herself. It seems that Astrid is communicating with Ella. What does Astrid have to say?

The After Girls is the first book from new author, Leah Konen. This book is more emotionally deeper then some of the young adult books that I have read. So at times it made it a little rough to want to stick with this book. Only because it was sad but could also come off as depressing. Ella being yelled at by Astrid’s mother because she was grieving her daughter. Then there was Sydney who was getting drunk. I can understand each person copes with death in their own way but still hard to read this goes on for most of the book. After a while I did have to skim parts of the book to make it read faster. It did drag a little.

However Leah really gets gritty and brings the raw emotions that anyone can relate to when dealing with a friend’s death. I would recommend that the older teens read this book like seventeen +. Again as I pointed out the younger readers might not be as mature enough to handle. Leah Konen shows a very mature side to her writing and what she is about with her debut novel, The After Girls. I am curious to see what Leah comes out with next.


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