"This time round, despite what will inevitably come after, I will be honest. It's the only hope I have." - Nina De Pass, The Year After You

I requested this book from Net Galley to review, it was one of my very first advance reader copies, the cover art alone peaked my interest. Then I read the synopsis and thought it would be a interesting and easy read.

Before I begin, I'd just like to say that this review contains thoughts and opinions that may spoil the plot. There are topics covered in this story that may be triggering to you such as: PTSD, grief, suicide and survivors guilt.

As a preface to the main story, the main character Cara survives a horrific car accident on New Years Eve, but her best friend Georgina does not.
The story begins nine months after the accident, Cara is struggling, she is consumed by guilt and grief. Her mum has sent her to a Swiss boarding school in the hopes that it will be a fresh start.

For my full review see: https://readbyamity.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/review-the-year-after-you/

This book ticked all of my boxes, easy to read, had me laughing, crying, internally screaming at, and empathising with the characters. It explored some difficult topics, and showcased beautifully how hard it is to be forced to endure the cruel things the world can dish out to you. I found the writing well developed, and it exceeded my expectations.

For these reasons, I rated this book a solid and well deserved 5 out of 5 stars. Would most definitely recommend.

3.5 stars!

Only three chapters in and I was ready to DNF this book. But then I realised that 13 year old me would have absolutely devoured it, and so I gave in. I got rid of any expectations and decided to take this book's roller coaster ride. Turns out; I actually enjoyed it!

I think this book is perfect for 13+, it deals with recovery and several mental health issues in a responsible way.

The humour of this book is just perfect. There's not one solid 'comedic' character, but rather each of the friendship group gets their own funny moment. The friendships are a nice dynamic and have a level of depth to them.

A compelling boarding school YA novel all about overcoming trauma and the saving grace of true friendship – a perfect book to snuggle up with on a snowy winter's night.

Nina de Pass's debut YA novel is a fab read - I devoured it over a couple of days, racing to discover more about the secretive characters and their dark pasts, and to find out if, and how, they find redemption.

Cara, the main character, is sent to boarding school in Switzerland as a last resort to overcome the trauma of a car accident in which her best friend died. But there's more to the story than that, and if Cara is to start over, she must keep the truth from those who would befriend her. Yet at the same time, can she really forge new, lasting friendships if she doesn't come clean about her past?

For anyone that has ever felt lonely and struggled to face their demons, Cara's story will feel familiar and cathartic. If the prose is sometimes a little heavy on the foreshadowing, it's hardly a deterrent to read the book as the characters are each unique and complex, and the strength of their relationships will draw you deeper into the story and its glittering, magical setting in the snowy Swiss Alps. Keep a tissue nearby - it's a sometimes emotional ride!

The Year After You by Nina de Pass portrays a story of grief, guilt and forgiveness. The story follows the main character Cara, as she struggles through the days, weeks and months after her best friend, G, is killed in a car accident. After several months of seeing her daughter in pain, Cara’s mother decides Cara might find her way through her pain at a boarding school in Switzerland, a new place where Cara can start over. But when she arrives at Hope Hall in the Swiss Alps, Cara still struggles to move past her grief and overbearing guilt. However, the possibility of new found friendships with three students in her year might be enough to help her finally move on. In particular, she connects with Hector, who understands where she comes from more than anyone. First, she has to decide if she is strong enough to let him into her life.

I was really happy to receive the ARC of this book, especially after falling in love with the cover and the glowing reviews I’d read. However, now that I have finished this book, I feel that the expectations bought on by the gorgeous cover and other reader’s reviews has were too high and I have ended up feeling underwhelmed by the plot and the characters. I’m going to try and explain why, but to be honest, I’m not entirely sure why this book just didn’t grab me.

It took me quite a long time to get into the narrative and to connect with Cara as a character. It wasn’t until about halfway through the book that I really thought I could see who Cara was as a person, but in the first half and even in the second, I still couldn’t quite connect with her. If I don’t feel like a main character is really speaking to me, it makes it much harder for me to fall into a story. I felt that I really wanted to know Cara more, but I think because she herself was so out-of-touch with most things expect her own internal grief, I was unable to know who she was outside of what she was dealing with. Her connections with the other characters and her own self felt lost to me in comparison to what she was going through from her past with G. And, honestly, I sometimes struggled with actually liking her up until near the end of the book.

I felt the same about many of the other characters, too. With Hector, I wish there’d been a little more characterisation. To me, he felt like a bit of an enigma and I would’ve liked to know more about him, rather than him being that person to help Cara get through everything because they shared difficult pasts. I wish there’d been more of Ren and Fred, but their backgrounds, problems and relationships with each other and the other characters were more backstory in comparison to Cara’s narrative and Hector’s as well. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with that, but I just felt like I wanted to really, step into these four characters lives and the book just didn’t quite get me there.

While I liked the themes of grief, guilt and forgiveness that were explored and enjoyed Cara reaching a point where she felt better in her own skin again, I found the portrayal of these themes when they weren’t connected to Cara sometimes shallow, that they could’ve gone a lot deeper. While I liked the inclusion of certain issues, I felt that there were sometimes too many things being explored that meant there was less time dedicated to the main story line, and this meant that some plot lines felt forced or out of place in the scheme of things.

While on the whole this book didn’t work for me, I do want to say that Nina de Pass’s writing was easy to read and often whimsical in style. There were times that I was really wowed by her portrayal of the issues and Cara’s internal feelings. One particular description, which I can’t say more on because it’s a spoiler, really did make my heart skip with the beauty in the words. These moments of particularly good writing and the exploration of mental health and guilt, among others, were definitely the highlights of this book. It’s a shame that everything else didn’t click with me as I’d expected and hoped.

Really good book! There was not all that much happening at the start and I felt it was a bit slow to get into, but past the first bit I really enjoyed it!

The story focuses on Cara and her life as she attempts to face up to the aftermath of a life changing event. I really loved the setting for this book and felt that the author gave enough detail to allow me to clearly imagine the school without it feeling like the flow of the story was interrupted. I also loved that the characters weren’t perfect people who always made the right choice and acted in the best way possible. The characters felt real and relatable. At times I was on their side, exasperated with them, down right annoyed and heartbroken. An engaging and enjoyable read. I would highly recommend this book.

*4.25 Stars*

Cara has lived something traumatic and her mother decides to send her to a boarding school in Switzerland so that she can process and heal. But Cara has a lot of trouble connecting considering how guarded she is. And who could blame her? But Hector and Ren insert themselves into her life and Cara can't help but feel things and it's not without its challenges.

I'm a sucker for boarding school stories and this was no exception. I loved the mountains setting and I could picture the snow and even feel the cold. The characters were all layered and all around interesting. I felt for Cara a lot and I really liked Ren and Hector. Cara's pain was very relatable and touching, it even moved me to tears. I really liked how everything was balanced and how the interactions between the characters were told, especially the flashbacks. I do love an unreliable narrator.
I did see most of the big twists coming though and I couldn't understand why everyone was so angry at the end, and it made me mad on her behalf. I also wasn't all that swept up by the romance. But all in all, this was simply a great story about friendship and grief.

This is a wonderful, soul-searching, but sad story of hope and grief and it is one of the best books that I have read in a while.

It is set in Hope Hall, a Swiss boarding school located in the Alps. For me, one of the things that Nina de Pass did very cleverly was using the setting to maximum effect in THE YEAR AFTER YOU. Since my childhood, I have loved boarding school settings, as everything is so much more intense when in close proximity, such as romantic liaisons and relationships which tend to run at a different rate.

The main protagonist in this novel is Cara, who I found to be exceptionally frustrating at times, though this did not spoil the story for me in any way. From an honesty point of view, she was pretty unreliable as a narrator, however, I had a great deal of empathy for her because of what happened to her best friend Georgina. I loved that Nina de Pass developed Cara’s character so well.

I really liked all of the characters in THE YEAR AFTER YOU because they were so well formed as people with their own parts to play and were not just added after-thoughts to make the protagonist look better. For me, the story-telling also held some poignant messages about support mechanisms of friends and family and mental health issues.

I think that THE YEAR AFTER YOU is a book that I will remember. I would certainly recommend reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Black & White Publishing and Nina de Pass for a free ARC of this book in exchange for a voluntary, honest review.

I loved this a lot. This book deals with topics like mental ilness and guilt (PTSS). The author did a great job of writing the characters, they are very believable. The setting is a boarding school so that's always interesting. I love how you kept learning more about the main character's problems and why she isn't perfect. But she too deserves forgiveness!

So, great book for young adults or just adults. Possible trigger warnings: guilt, homophobia, suicide, mental ilness.

That was an emotional journey if I ever saw one.
I definitely tend to stop myself from reading books like this, but when I actually finish reading them, it’s like I’ve been given this gigantic reward.
My favourite books of all time have been things like ‘Neverland’ by Margot McGovern, ‘The Sister Pact’ by Stacie Ramey and ‘Love Letters to the Dead’ by Ava Dellaira, all of which follow in the same vein as this book.
I think there’s something so beautiful and haunting about this book. The atmosphere is so encompassing, like a shroud of energy - not the bad kind though - that leaves you in a trance-like state.
I love, love, LOVE all of the main characters in this story. In fact I could go so far as to say I loved all of the characters because they were so developed as people and not just as props to make the protagonist look good. It had those important messages about friends, family, support systems and mental health. It was just a lot of really good things and it hit the right points for me over and over again.
‘The Year After You’ is one of those books that will stick with you for a long time. Would definitely recommend picking this up!

I want to thank Netgalley for providing me with and arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I cannot put into words how much I loved this book!
When I started this book I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did but I couldn’t put it down until I finished it.
This book took me on an emotional roller coaster and I spent a majority of the book with tears streaming down my face.
Cara is such an amazing and complex character. I just wanted to hug her so badly. Her emotional journey was turbulent and amazing.
She was engaging and I felt every emotion she was feeling as if it was my own.
I adored Ren and thought she was such an amazing friend to cara when she was at her lowest.
Hector was probably my favourite character because I connected most with his story.
I love how this wasn’t an insta love story but one that slowly grew into something amazing, genuine and beautiful.
Overall I have to say this book is now one of my favourite books ever. I connected with it in a way I haven’t connected with a book in a long time.
I felt everything while reading this book and it was defiantly worth the ride on the emotional rollercoaster!
If this book is any indication Nina is going to be one of my all time favourite authors.
5 stars isn’t enough for how good this was.