After

Rating:
Summary: what is THIS?
Review: People say this book is 'scary', and 'it makes you think'. Face the facts, people. The only 'scary' thing about it is how little significance it has with real-life issues.
'It makes you think'. Yeah, makes you think about what terrible writing this is. WHY does Ms. Prose INSIST on not letting you figure anything out?! It's as if she thinks we're stupid or something.
This book deals only with the IMPOSSIBLE.
Really, would a high school kid be killed because she wore an AIDS ribbon?!
Quite frankly, I simply do not see the point. The end really stunk. I think Francine got bored with her own story and decided she should just END it.
And what was UP with that evil freak psychologist guy?! What kind of a villain was that?! There was NO REASON for ANYTHING in this book. NOTHING was explained.
Like how all the kids' parents turn into zombies and LET their kids be killed?! What was THAT all about?!
I did NOT enjoy this book at all.

Rating:
Summary: How Did This Get Published?
Review: Reading AFTER does not require a suspension of disbelief--it requires a suspension of common sense. The plot of Francine Prose's ridiculous tale has more holes than Camp Green Lake. For instance, a student has an expensive cell phone belonging to his parent thrown out by a school administrator because the parent failed to read an email sent overnight banning cell phones at school. That is the end of that plot line. The parent never even asks about the cell phone that the student fails to bring home. The student says nothing. In another instance, a child who wears an AIDS ribbon ends up being sent away to a detention camp by the administration and murdered, all because of the desire to wear an AIDS ribbon. Again, not a word from parents, friends, neighbors about the student's disappearance. I look at a book, not at who wrote it, but the mystery of AFTER is how such [stuff] got published. Obviously Prose has enough clout as a writer of adult books to bypass the editing process--or else the editor was sent to the same detention camp as Prose's characters. I have never submitted a negative review to Amazon before, but this book merits an exception.

Rating:
Summary: a very intriguing read
Review: Reading this book as an adult, I was very impressed at how Francine Prose managed to make me feel fifteen again. This book deals with very serious issues, issues that affect people - and Americans - of any age. The core of the book is simple enough: if we do not defend our rights, we will lose them. This book can spark some very interesting modern dialogues on the difference between freedom and safety, and where the line should be drawn between them, though the author uses subtle historical references to show the very real precedent in world history. History does repeat itself, and this is a very timely - and haunting - reminder.

Rating:
Summary: After
Review: The book begins with a bang, literally. There is a school shooting 50 miles from the town that Tom lives in. This is, obviously, a tragic event, but it really does effect the life of Tom and the school more than it should. There is a new guidance counselor who changes all the rules. Metal detectors go in, books such as The Cather and the Rye are no longer allowed on school grounds, and brainwashing emails are sent to parents. He even goes so far as to impose a curfew on the students and no allow them to go to the mall. Soon people start disappearing. Tom is very concerned.

That's all. I really enjoyed the story and the plot, but the end was beyond disapointing. Nothing happens. The school is a mess and it just ends. The family leaves, but we don't know where they are going, if they get there, or what happens to the school, the missing people, the students still there. Absolutly nothing is explained. I would have loved the book if it had actually had an ending, but since it ended in the middle of the story, to be honest, I hated it. If there is a sequal that will be coming out, well then I take that back. It was very easy to read, and if you have the book I guess it is worth it to at least read it. The story is very interesting, and I even felt scared myself at times, thankful that I'm not in highschool anymore and that this can't happen to me. The ending is the only bad aspect of the story.

Rating:
Summary: an okay ride, but not well thought out
Review: The premise of this book - introducing the concept of an over-protective state becoming a police state to teenagers- is an interesting one. Teenagers in general are very isolationist, yet at the same time very aware of any inconveniences in their own lives. This book shows how those very traits are used against students to take over their lives.

But the premise is not fully thought out. Without giving away spoilers, I can only say that I was very dissapointed in how the plot was resolved.

There are some interesting observations through the book; some keys to the mindset of fascism. But overall, it's a thriller/horror with a weak foundation.

Rating:
Summary: Good idea, no motive
Review: There are some very good things about this book. The characters are realistic, the plot is eerie, and the book is suspenseful. However, the plot of the novel becomes so outrageous that it begins to make it's own paranoid character seem lucid.

The idea that there is a nationwide conspiracy is extreme. To make this strange plot device worse, the antagonists have no identifiable motive for putting all the teens into these "concentration camps for teens." The only identifiable reason why the teens are being taken away to these camps is that the antagonists are purely evil and need no reason to ruin the lives of the characters.

I enjoyed this book but it lacked such important plot points that I wonder why it was permitted to be published as it was.

Rating:
Summary: Scary as hell.
Review: This book freaked myself and four friends of mine into extreme paranoia. I don't know how the two reviews below could give it such a low rating! It's not so much at the time you're reading, it's when you put the book down (if you can) that the chills start in and the reality sets in that maybe it's true. I mean, it's not like there aren't really cameras on the school buses, it's a fact there is. This book played on the reader's paranoia, and intimate fears. It was truly amazing and left me wondering what happened? What happened to those people?!
A must read for any conspiracy lover.

Rating:
Summary: Helps young readers understand repression
Review: This book is a wonderful way to get young people to feel deeply the horror of repression. Sure, they have heard about Nazi Germany, Stalinist U.S.S.R, maybe Pol Pot's Cambodia, and (I hope) McCarthy's U.S.A. But what does it mean? All of that happened in other places, other times, to other people. Francine Prose gives young readers a window into repression that is thoroughly personal.
For reviewers who were confused or disappointed by the book: Do you complain about Gulliver's Travels because there aren't, in real life, any tiny people, giants, or talking horses? View After as a metaphor, a well-written game of WHAT IF. What if the ones being repressed weren't Jews, Gypsies, Communists, dissidents, intellectuals, etc.? What if it were you and your friends? What if you were targeted for subjugation, or worse, not because of what you did, but because you were part of a group that was hated without reason by the people in power?
Yes, the action in After becomes more and more extreme and unrealistic, if you believe that Prose is talking only about early twenty-first century America. But things HAVE become that extreme elsewhere: constant surveillance, incremental loss of rights, increasing separation from the rest of society, mass incarceration and murder. People (once again: Jews, dissidents, and so on) have been sent away or have disappeared without arousing public comment from friends, neighbors, and co-workers, all of whom want or need to accept the official explanations. By the time too many are gone to ignore, the people who remain have been terrified into silence.
Don't expect a sequel from the author. This isn't really about one kid, family, or school. This is about what can, and does, happen.

Rating:
Summary: A high school students perspective
Review: This book is great, It starts off with kids learning the was a shooting at a school 50mis away...they get a new consler and things start to change...kids dissapear....this book makes you think about if this can really happen.....the only ting i don't like is that it leaves you hanging....and I hope that there is a sequal.......................

Rating:
Summary: awesome
Review: this book really makes you feel like its really happening and it freaks you out. it is one of the best books i have ever read. please let there be a sequel.