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[readingbooksinbed]

A sneak preview for Friday’s read-through of Chapter One!

[readingbooksinbed]

A Book Lover Reviews : After, Prologue

Some backstory to start this out : I read After when it was on Wattpad, back when it was just a Harry Styles fanfic. I quit it then, and now that it’s a published book, maybe it will be better? Yea, probably not. ... Let’s get this party started.

College had always seemed so crucial, such an essential part of what measures a person’s worth and determines their future. We live in a time where people ask which school you went to before asking your last name.

I mean, that’s fair. Not the most compelling first sentence, but it does set up our narrator as a person who probably has a stick up their ass. 

From an early age I was taught, trained really, to prepare for my education. It had become this necessity that required an overwhelming amount of preparation and borderline obsession. Every class I chose, every assignment I completed since my first day of high school revolved around getting into college.

Definitely going to have a stick up their ass. 

And not just any college - my mother had it set in her mind that I attend Washington Central University, the same school that she attended, but never completed.

Does every shitty teen romance have to be set in the Pacific Northwest? These authors do realize there are other places in the United States, right? Also, I hate this mother already. And this narrator seems like a pushover. Somehow I don’t see that changing.

I had no idea there would be so much more to college than academics.

... Did this narrator enjoy crawling out from the rock they were apparently living under? Seriously, what the fuck even. 

I had no idea that choosing which electives to take during my first semester would seem, just a few months later, like trivial affairs.

Has the author been to college? And for someone who is being set up to be studious, this sure doesn’t make them seem too concerned with school. Choose electives wisely, kids. 

I was naive then ...

And now.

... and in some ways I still am. But I couldn’t possibly have known what lay ahead of me. Meeting my dorm-mate was intense and awkward from the start, and meeting her wild groups of friends even more so.

Seeing bared ankles must have been quite a culture shock.

They were so different from anyone I had ever known and I was intimidated by their appearance, confused by their pure inattention to structure.

... You didn’t get out much in high school, did you? Who am I kidding, of course you didn’t. Wait until you’re up until 3 AM writing a paper that’s due the next morning and then maybe you’ll understand them more.

I quickly became a part of their madness, indulging in it ... And that’s when he crept into my heart.

Catch me vomiting in 3 ... 2 ... 1.

From our first encounter, Hardin ...

What the fuck kind of name is Hardin?

... changed my life in ways that no amount of college prep courses or youth group lectures could have. Those movies I watched as teen quickly became my life, and those ridiculous plotlines became my reality.

The ridiculous pot calling the ridiculous kettle black. Also, I didn’t realize there was teen drama in VeggieTales.

Would I have done anything if I had known what was to come? I’m not sure. I would love to give a straight answer to that, but I can’t. At times I am grateful, so utterly lost in the moment of passion that my judgement is clouded and all I can see is him. Other times, I think of the pain he caused me, the deep sting of loss for who I had been, the chaos of those moments when I felt as if my world had been turned upside down, and the answer isn’t as clear as it once was.

Try to breathe while reading that paragraph aloud, I dare you. USE. A. PERIOD. FOR. GOD’S. SAKE.

All that I’m certain of is that my life and my heart will never be the same, not after Hardin crashed into them.

... I’m going to need alcohol to get through this book, aren’t I? Jesus.

Well, that’s it for the prologue! Catch me Friday night, where I review Chapter One and meet our narrator, finally. They’re bound to be a joy, I can tell.