This book was another gift I got from my work experience placement at Little, Brown and Books so sadly I did not meet Rosamund Lupton but they gave me a signed copy of her book!
Book Synopsis
There is a fire and they are in there. They are in there…
Black smoke stains a summer blue sky. A school is on fire. And one mother, Grace, sees the smoke and rush. She knows her teenage daughter Jenny is inside. She runs into the burning building to rescue her.
Afterwards Grace must find the identity of the arsonist and protect her children from the person who’s still intent on destroying them. Afterwards, she must fight the limits of her physical strength and discover the limitlessness of love.
Review
First of all, if you’ve read Sister by Rosamund Lupton- which was brilliant, sad and kinda crazy- maybe you’ll love Afterwards. In comparison, I didn’t feel as OMGOMGOMGSHE’SAMAZING like I did when I read Sister. But that’s a whole different book.
Afterwards was a pretty interesting crime novel. The plot revolves around a fire that gets started in a private school on Sport’s day. Everybody is outside in the games, everyone except teenager Jenny. Her mother Grace, on site to help out with sport’s day realises her daughter isn’t outside when the fire drill goes. So what does she do? What any parent would do really: she rushes into the burning building to try and save her daughter. But thing’s don’t go to plan. Grace has got more to do then just get her daughter out of the burning building. She has to discover the identity of the arsonist, someone who is determined to kill her daughter and it seem’s like the criminal is right under her nose…
I felt pretty anxious as soon as the book was a few pages in: Rosamund Lupton definitely knows how to unsettle her readers without even explicitly telling you something went wrong. The whole stage of this novel was not typical of the crime books I read. The viewpoints were strange but intriguing because I haven’t read a novel that is narrated in such a way before. The book definitely will provoke your thoughts about life, death and the realms around.
Something I didn’t like about this book was I felt it was pretty long in a hurry-up-I-just-want-to-know-what-happened kind of way. The ending made me sick in a disgusted way when the culprit is revealed. But I did love reading it. Quite sad how the events played out in the end but I definitely would recommend this book if you’re looking to read a crime novel with a more ethereal narrative than what you usually find.