After

                

After

By: Francine Prose

Rating: ****

                I read this book a few years ago and I felt it worthy enough to get a review done. After is one of those novels that make you think. It makes you think about situations that we tend to hide from, that we are afraid of thinking of. After, the novel by Francine Prose, forces us to think of a world like this, of school districts doing things like the situations in this book. Would you be one of those people who are pro or are you against something like what goes on inside After? I have to admit, I’m fully against everything that goes on inside this novel, and it makes me imagine a world like this. Since I’m still in High School, coming up on my final year, I think completely different from someone outside of school. While other’s, adults especially, might think of something like this as good, teenagers and college students, and even elementary school students might see this as a threat, an invasion of our lives. After has taught me so much, it has made think of different perceptions. The title After is an excellent title. This book is truly about what happens after a school shooting, and what the effects are of districts around the source of the violence.

            In Pleasant Valley a school called Central High has been put under major pressure after a school shooting only 50 miles away has shaken everyone around the surrounding area. Restrictions have been put on the students, metal detectors at every door, and harsh punishments for the smallest of discrepancies. To Tom Bishop and his friends, school is beginning to feel like a literal prison. There’s no way to stop anything, and the rules are changing constantly from the inability to wear certain colors to the ban of trench coats. As time progresses students and teachers begin disappearing mysteriously with no trace. All anyone knows is that they have spoken out against the new “Big Brother” of a school system, and those who speak out have to be punished.

            After has put new ideas and thoughts into my mind that I have not thought about before. Some of my friends spoke of including metal detectors at my school because of the most recent school shootings and all I could think of was After and what the school turned into after the first change. One building block after another and the school fell into what felt like a copy of George Orwell’s 1984. Can this reality really come true? Is this something that could happen in the near future? We can only hope that this never happens, and if it does, we can only pray that maybe it will go away before school systems become Big Brother.