The Astonishing Color of After

Leigh's mother died by suicide. Leigh is convinced she became a bird. She travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time, searching for her mother's past and trying to understand her grief through the lens of Taiwanese culture and magical realism. Pan writes about suicide loss, mental health, biracial identity, and the specific experience of being half-Taiwanese in America with extraordinary care and formal ambition. The most important YA novel about suicide loss and the one that most honestly holds the complexity of loving someone whose mind was working against them.