Book Review: All the Tomorrows After by Joanne Yi
A raw and unfiltered story about loss, love, and what family can sometimes look like, check out my full review for All the Tomorrows After by Joanne Yi below!
Book Information
Winter Moon doesn’t have it all. She honestly doesn’t even have a lot. With a seemingly uncaring and unkind mother, a job Winter has to keep to help pay bills, and her poor Halmoni who can barely take care of herself after the stroke that left her disabled, Winter is barely staying afloat. So when her estranged father’s wife comes looking for her begging her to meet with her father, Winter is more than cautious. But she knows how to strike a deal, and if there’s one thing she deserves from the man who left her, it’s money. So, Winter begins to get to know him, but she finds more than she bargained for and a chance that she never thought she’d have. The chance to have a father.
Review | Heidi Dischler
So, in all honesty, this was a beautiful book. But, I’m nothing if not truthful when it comes to my reviews, and this book was so slow to me. There are so many positives to this book like the characters and the story and the lyrical prose. I just couldn’t get past the pacing.
Let’s start with the good. I loved the characters. I think Joanne Yi did a wonderful job bringing them all to life. There were complex and frustrating and so so human. Joon was my favorite character with Helena and Melody hitting a close second. Winter was often hard to life sometimes, but I think that was a product of the deep depression I think she was in. While it was never mentioned, to me it seemed very obvious that she was depressed. Her relationship with her father was a centerpiece in this novel and was honestly one of the most complex relationships in the book. Sung made me so mad at times and he felt so selfish, but I don’t think I can hold that against him.
The story was probably one of the best parts. It focuses mainly on Winter’s relationship with her father, Sung, Joon (a boy she likes and who likes her), and her mother, Sunny. The main relationship, though, is with Sung. There’s a lot of mending broken things and wondering if some of the broken parts could ever be fixed. Winter was so distrustful (and rightfully so) that it took her a long time to warm up. Once you get past the beginning and finally see her open up, though, it’s such a triumphant moment as a reader.
With the writing style, everything felt so fluffed and lyrical. It was beautiful, but oftentimes felt like too much for a novel of this length. There were times when I just wanted the author to get to the point, but everything had innuendo and everything was shrouded by a metaphor. I like this type of writing style at times, but it was so draining for a full length novel. Which leads me to…
The pacing. I cannot tell you how many times I told myself I’d read for an hour and just couldn’t get my attention to hold for long enough. I was literally on the beach and had nothing to do but read and I just couldn’t. I think a lot of this had to do with the writing style, but I honestly didn’t connect with any of the characters until well past halfway through the novel. So, I literally pulled myself through this one and while I genuinely enjoyed the story, the characters, and the writing style, I think it could have been shortened exponentially in the beginning.
Overall, I’d probably rate this book a 2.5/5 and round it up to 3 for all the social platforms. It had a beautiful writing style and wonderful characters but dragged on for so long in the beginning that I couldn’t get my attention to stay on the book. Huge thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to have an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Source: Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley
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