What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins

 I couldn’t remember much about this book since I finished it so long ago, so I had to do a memory refresher. Boy, am I sorry I did that!

Short synopsis of the book: Two teenage boys shockingly die, and a pregnant teen girl shows up from the woods and into the lives of their families. The parents feel her timing is a blessing, but it’s clear she’s hiding something. She and the parents are eventually forced to deal with what happened to the boys, and why she was so entangled with them to begin with.

Sounds like a bunch of mysterious drama right? False. This book was entirely too long and boring. The author tries to convince you that there’s some deep conspiracy going on, but what’s actually happening is shallow and not worth reading hundreds of pages. The boys are not as innocent as they appear to be, and the reveal of what happened to them is icky and not something you need in your head, however temporary that may be. One of the parents also decides to go back to his Quaker faith about halfway through the book. It felt really misplaced and didn’t make sense in comparison with what was already going on in the story.

Most important of all, there’s A LOT of violence against animals written into the book, and none of it enhances the actual “story.” If you’ve ever had a traumatic moment with a pet, steer very clear. You can find more details on other Goodreads reviews, but I have no desire to go into it further.

Now that we’ve done this review, we can throw this book into the river and totally forget it exists.