I started reading After by Anna Todd after (ok, this could get annoying) our friends at Gallery Books sent us the book. I’d also heard so much hullabaloo about it being a One Direction fan fic on Wattpad and the movie rights being option. Yes, let me repeat that: a One Direction (real life) fan fic was optioned.
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NEVERTHELESS…
Take one look at the book cover and you can tell NO ONE is trying to hide that fact from the blazing “Wattpad Sensation Imaginator1d” and another huge quote: “1 Billion Reads Online! Newly Revised and Expanded!” Honestly, this is kinda refreshing, own your roots and let people know an ass ton of folks read your writing online and they should buy your book! And who are we as readers to be too cool for Fan Fic? We’re read tons and tons of our faves have been published.
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With that in mind, I cracked open the book on and plane home from NYCC and besides, he’s just so freaking adorable who wouldn’t want to read a little HUGE EFFING story about him?
Since I’m intrigued by all things Fandom whether they are my own or not, I knew I had to take to the internets to see what it thinks about After. About 4 minutes into my Googling, I figured out that After is to the One Direction fandom as 50 Shades is to the Twilight fandom. You’re either so on board you’re buying Christian Grey ties and ordering 50 Shades wine or you’re hate it so much you create Tumblr’s about the REAL Anna Todd and talk how she’s supposedly ruining Harry Styles’ life.
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Pass me the popcorn, AMIRIGHT?!
Beyond the fanfic aspect and the fandom similarities, apparently people think After and 50 Shades are could be long lost twins, as in maybe Anna Todd read 50 Shades or Master of the Universe, as it was then called, and then decided to try her own hand at writing. I doubt that happened and who really knows the truth as a story about a guy and a girl who hate each other, then love each other, then end up in a weird relationship that borders on abuse, then break up, then get back together because: love conquers all, is not the newest trope in the book.
So what is After about you ask… good question my friend. Let me tell you:
You Really Feel Like You’re In Freshmen Year of College Again
Like REALLY feel like maybe 100 pages too much moving into dorms and going to frat parties too much but this sets the stage for the Hardin/Tessa love/hate relationship to take place.
The Mr. Darcy & Lizzy Bennett of our time
During a heated debate in their British Literature class Hardin and Tessa have a heated debate wherein they not so secretively compare their budding relationship to that of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. The classic novel. By esteemed, revered, worshiped author, Jane Austen.
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Oh, children. I almost remember what it was like to be a freshmen in college now!
Everybody Loves A Badboy
It must be written in the DNA of the female gene pool… somewhere near a love for wine and cheese and girl’s night out and directly opposite from our sane, security loving impulses. And Hardin is the answer to that, if you looked up “Bad Boy” in the fiction dictionary next to it would be a picture of Hardin alongside Beautiful Bastard and the aforementioned Mr. Darcy.
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He has his moments (lots of moments) of dickishness but he’s clearly hiding something under all that asshole-ish behavior and darnit if ladies don’t feel about Florence Nightingale, the therapist version around that. Throw in tattoos and maybe a some brooding in a dark corner a la Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights and YAHTZEE the ladies are done for. Tessa didn’t stand a chance against her own biology.
Sex Machine
Of course Tessa is gonna be enamored with Hardin the bad boy and get tired of her cardigan wearing, “safe” boyfriend, Noah. So it should come as no surprise that the first opportunity to suck face with Hardin (I keep typing HardON, FYI) does not go wasted. It should also be stated that Hardin knows EXACTLY what he’s doing when he offers “friendship” and a day of getting to know each other to naive Tessa which DUH results in her first BIG O courtesy of his fingers next to a stream on a wet tshirt. Oh, YOUNG LOVE. This leaves both Tessa and Hardin like:
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Settle in friends
This book is 582 pages long. And there are THREE follow up books planned! And let’s not forget the rights have been optioned for TV/Film! This could SO be on the CW.
Young Love
Regardless of how you feel about the writing or the background or that it started at Real Life Fic, it’s at it’s core a story about young love. The ups, the downs, the game playing, the exploration, the WTF is going on moments, the will they or won’t they get together that we all love so much, Hardin coming in his boxers…
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Sorry Harry! It happens. Regardless, if you that kind of stuff, then this is a fun read for you. And you can listen to One Direction while you read it, guilt-free! That alone is worth the price of admission. That and thinking about this guy for a few hundred pages or so…
Lean in… lean in.. keep going… GOT YOU.
So you want to read After by Anna Todd? You’re in luck cause we’re giving a copy of it away right here!
Win a copy of After
We are giving away TWO paperback copies of After by Anna Todd. To enter, just comment with what fan fic you’d like to see published next. Plus you can get extra points for tweeting and following That’s Normal on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Sign up via the rafflecopter below.
GOOD LUCK
Have you read After either in Fic or the published version? Share your Harry Styles and After Anna Todd GIFs below!
