The Astonishing Color of After’s Asian-American cultural representation, as well as depiction of topics such as mental health and teen suicide, has led to critical and scholarly discussion of the novel's pedagogical value.
"[1] At the novel’s opening, Leigh states that her mother Dory has turned into a red bird after her suicide, after leaving a note with the crossed-out statement: “I want you to remember”.
After numerous attempts to see the red bird and as she experiences insomnia and recalls the memories of her loved ones, Leigh begins to see cracks in her dreamscape world.
Pan was raised in Illinois by her Taiwanese and Chinese American parents and closely collaborated with her extended family in Taiwan while researching and writing the novel.
[3] In an interview with the School Library Journal, Pan shared that similar to Leigh, she lost a family member to suicide and has experienced firsthand the effects of depression.
[4] In the novel's "Author’s Note" section, Pan emphasizes that “it was important to me that while Leigh’s mother had experienced some terrible things in her life, there wasn’t a reason to explain her having depression”.
[6] The book-reviewing blog The Quiet Pond analyzed Pan’s mystic imagery as parallelling Leigh’s struggle to grieve and her desperate search to find the red bird.
[7] The Harvard Crimson found Pan’s attention to depression “sensitive” and that her depiction of its “irrevocable consequences” to Dory made clear that she suffered “a relentless illness, not a set of causes or circumstances”.
In Taiwan, she's dismayed to find that she is exoticized in much the same manner as in the US – people point and whisper, hunxie, a word she soon learns describes someone biracial".
[11] Sharp and Johnson cite Gloria Ladson-Billings' description of culturally relevant pedagogy as aiming to “‘empower students to examine critically the society in which they live and to work for social change’”.
[14] Falkoff asserts that novels that address these complex topics require guidance, for while they may provide valuable insight for students to gain conscientiousness and compassion, they may create an unhealthy obsession with suicide.
[14] She concludes that educators’ positionality is therefore vital in critically analyzing and guiding their students through suicide-topic novels to help build empathy and awareness.
"[17] Publishers Weekly wrote, "The subtlety and ambiguity of the supernatural elements place this story in the realm of magical realism, full of ghosts and complex feelings and sending an undeniable message about the power of hope and inner strength.
"[16] Kirkus called the book "[a]n evocative novel that captures the uncertain, unmoored feeling of existing between worlds—culturally, linguistically, ethnically, romantically, and existentially—it is also about seeking hope and finding beauty even in one’s darkest hours.
The Horn Book Magazine praised Pan’s portrayal of Leigh as a visual artist, who told her story with "a vividness punctuated by a host of highly specific hues: a 'cerise punch' to the gut, 'viridian spiraling' thoughts, a heart 'bursting with manganese blue and new gamboges yellow and quinacridone rose.
[34] In reporting on the controversy, Elissa Gershowitz and Martha Parravano of The Horn Book inc. asserted that more voices in conversions surrounding equity and conclusion in children’s literature are what is needed for scholarship and young people.