October 11, 2015

Review: Not After Everything by Michelle Levy

A gritty but hopeful love story about two struggling teens—
great for fans of The Spectacular Now, Willow, and Eleanor and Park

Tyler has a football scholarship to Stanford, a hot girlfriend, and a reliable army of friends to party with. Then his mom kills herself. And Tyler lets it all go. Now he needs to dodge what his dad is offering (verbal tirades and abuse) and earn what his dad isn’t (money). Tyler finds a job that crashes him into Jordyn, his former childhood friend turned angry-loner goth-girl. She brings Tyler an unexpected reprieve from the never-ending pity party his life has become. How could he not fall for her? But with his dad more brutally unpredictable than ever, Tyler knows he can’t risk bringing Jordyn too deeply into the chaos. So when violence rocks his world again, will it be Jordyn who shows him the way to a hopeful future? Or after everything, will Tyler have to find it in himself?

I couldn’t find a trailer, so here’s a song!

This book! Ughhhh…How many different kinds of crying did this book make me experience? Let’s see…ugly crying of course, joyous tears, brokenhearted tears, tears of frustration, tears of pain…so many feels you guys! So. Many. Feels.

Not After Everything by Michelle Levy follows high school senior, Tyler. Tyler pretty much had it all…high school football star, the guy every girl wanted and the guy every guy wanted to be, a scholarship to Stanford…then it all came crashing down. Tyler comes home from football practice to find his mother in the bathtub, dead. What if he had just come home sooner, would he have been able to stop his mother from taking her own life?

Tyler has pretty much given up on school, his friends, and especially football. Not only does he struggle with dealing with the loss of his mother, but his abusive father is not holding back his hatred for his own son. The abuse that poor Tyler has to go through is indescribable. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain and terror that he has to live with on a daily basis. Not only the physical abuse, but the mental and emotional abuse as well. To be told on a daily basis that he is nothing, that he should be dead, that he’s not loved nor was he ever wanted. That his father would in no way, shape, or form support him with his needs like food, gas, toilet paper… My heart continued to cry for Tyler!

And does he say anything? Of course not…for fear that he would be ripped away from the only “home” that he has ever known and be placed in a group home. And it’s because of this fear that he continues to fearfully come home and take the abuse doled out by his father.

Thank goodness for Jordyn…the goth angel that is everything that Tyler needs and is everything that Tyler wants. And her family? They brought me to tears too! I can’t even you guys…you need to experience this book.

Not After Everything by Michelle Levy is a bittersweet book that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster ride. Be sure to have some tissues on hand when you immerse yourself in this book.

About Michelle Levy

Michelle Levy was born and raised in Littleton, Colorado, where she memorized books before she was able to read, tricking her parents into thinking she was a genius. At eighteen she moved to Los Angeles, to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. Michelle always secretly harbored a desire to write. She spent many insomnia-filled nights dreaming up stories that she never thought to write down. When she finally set out to get something on the page, the words flew out of her until she had her first completed manuscript, and she never looked back.

When Michelle isn't writing she is most likely working at her other job as a casting director, where in her many years of casting she has been privileged to work on projects such as Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Bruce Almighty, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, and many more.

She still lives in Los Angeles but desperately misses thunderstorms and clouds and, well, weather really (even the occasional snowstorm), so she visits Colorado quite often.

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