Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - What Comes After

This is another of a multitude of slice of life books I’ve been reading recently. Yet this is I believe the first time that I’ve read about a person who is a Quaker in the modern day timeline. Learning about Issac and his ties to this particular chosen faith was a cool learning experience for someone (aka me) who wasn’t familiar with the inner workings. Yet, this book is more than just Issac and his faith. This story encompasses Evangeline, (which means good news in its original Greek) who is sixteen and pregnant. Lorrie, who lost her husband and son to suicide. Jonah, the aforementioned dead son. Daniel, Isaac’s son who was killed by a person close to him. Although there is sadness and emotion, this is about a Pacific Northwest small community bringing themselves together to help each other, seek forgiveness and try to cope with the meaning of a higher power & what it means to live and let live. What Happens After is essentially revealing what people go through when they continue to live even after the people we love have been buried. The timeline does have flashbacks to give us further backstory but it’s intentional to the storyline.

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iamnita's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This coming of age story was just beautiful. The book starts with each character separated and when it starts to come together it's just really well done. There's a lot of trauma-stuff so a trigger warning is definitely needed. There was a good deal of crime stuff, and a whole lot of run-of-the-mill daily drama that kept me turning the pages and wanting to know where we would end up.
There were 3 predominant POVs that were told in hindsight and I appreciated when the then-narrator would tell us about what they did. I wouldn't want anyone else's perspective on any of this - these were the right narrators.
I did listen to the audiobook which was 3 narrators for each POV which helped keep everything straight for me.

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thespinystacks's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a slow burn that hit hard with emotions. Switching timelines and wondering about this skittish teenage girl leads you to turning page after page in this 400 + pager.

This is a book rich in imagery and character backstory and development. If you don’t love a character driven story, I’d say to skip this. But I loved it. It was much more emotional than I thought it was going to be, and sometimes a reader needs that surprise!

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