Everything ends and everything begins and everything will be OK

Laurel lives in a world of after. After she takes the SATs, she’ll be able to start thinking about college applications. After her junior year of high school ends, she and her best friend can spend the summer working together. After her senior year of high school ends, she will attend one of the colleges to which she will send an application. And after that will come another beginning which will be followed by an after followed by a beginning followed by an after.

And then comes an after for which Laurel is not prepared – her parents and brother are killed in what may be an alcohol-related car accident. Also killed is the wife of the man who is driving during what may be an alcohol-related car accident. He is hospitalized and falls into a coma.

Laurel is not prepared for this after, especially an after that ties her closely to her childhood friend, David, who has taken a different path from Laurel. He is not worried about colleges and college applications and summer jobs and anything that Laurel thinks are the after she and other kids her age should think about. Instead, David’s afters involve not getting throw into jail and not getting into fights and not getting kicked out of school, if he decides to even finish.

This after in which Laurel finds herself is as different an after from the beginning she never fully appreciated. Laurel’s grandmother moves in, and Laurel’s friends act differently toward her, and Laurel is all of a sudden the object of one boy’s affection. But does he like her for her, or does he like her for living in this after without her family.

And then there’s David. What to do about her burgeoning feelings for the son of the man who killed her mother and father and brother?

Interspersed throughout the book are conversations Laurel has with her therapist, and these conversations, while aimed at a high school girl dealing with impossible losses, will resonate for anyone who is going through – or who gone through – impossible moments that seem unending.

While aimed at a young adult audience, I enjoyed The Beginning of After, by Jennifer Castle, despite how clear the ending is from the beginning. Getting to this ending, getting to this after, is fun, if only because I was reminded of being in high school and worrying about getting into college and worrying about what would come next, because every beginning has an ending and every ending has an after and every after seems thoroughly impossible until you’re on the other side of after prepared for another beginning.