Bluebell’s twin sister Iris died three years ago and the family has never been the same. Flora, the oldest is rebelling, Bluebell has withdrawn behind a camera, Mom works and travels all the time, Dad also travels and is secretive, and the two Babes – Twig and Jasmine barely remember. This story explores the family dynamics and especially how Bluebell (Blue) learns to go on living after Iris. There is quite a bit of drama with the older sister Flora and her boyfriend Joss who also happens to be Blue’s “crush”. Can the family reconnect and be happy once again or will they continue to drift apart?


This was a pretty interesting book. Bluebell and her family have all drifted apart after the death of Iris, Bluebell’s twin. There is rebellion, escapism, misunderstandings, fear, and anger. The author did a good job of revealing the inner turmoil of the characters and showing how a family in pain can hurt each other deeply without meaning to. This would be a good book for kids whose families have gone through emotional situations.

Three years before this book begins, 12-year-old Blue's twin sister Iris died. (We don't find out why or how until 2/3 through the book.) In the meantime, she has watched everything fall apart -- she is invisible at school, her mother constantly travels for work, and her father is working in another city all together. She, her brother, and two sisters are mostly left to their own devices. This story is told through her journal and the transcripts of the videos that she shoots. Through her eyes, we see things continue to fall apart, until she finds the strength to pick them up and put her life back together. Taking place in London, this story will resonant with middle schoolers from all over. Highly recommended for grades 5-8.

Told through journal entries and transcripts of video, 12-year old Bluebell tells her story of life after her twin sister dies.

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It has been three years since Iris Gadsby's death and no one in the Gadsby family has really been able to come to grips with it. Living in an old house in London, dad is away most of the time, teaching medieval courses at a distant university; mum has taken a job with a beauty products company and must fly all over the world; older sister Flora, 16, is totally involved with her boyfriend and continuously changing the color of her hair; younger siblings Jasmine and Twig, AKA the Babes, are obsessed with their pet rats, and Iris's twin Bluebelle, now 13, hides behind her lens of her new video camera.

Now, the Gadsby parents have hired a dissertating student named Zoran to look after the kids while they are gone, who takes his job very seriously, even if he doesn't always get the cooperation he wants. Then, along comes Joss, who has been sent to live with his grandparents next door, and things really get crazy in the Gadsby household. Joss may be Blue's crush, but he is Flora boyfriend obsession.

Communicating with their mother mostly on Skype, and seeing their dad only on weekends, and now only sometimes if then, the kids conclude that their parents are perhaps growing apart and thinking of divorce. And then the Babes run away.

After Iris is one of the best contemporary novels I have read in a long time, and I have read a lot of really great novels lately. The Gadsby children are great characters, all different, but all well fleshed out. Flora is cool and has lots of friends, with the exception of Joss's friends who continually write terrible Facebook comments about her; Blue is geeky and awkward and no longer has any friends as they have moved on to inhabit the junior version of Flora's world and Blue has chosen to become invisible; the Babes have each other and their rats. At first, I thought they were twins as well, but Twig (the only boy) is the younger of the two.

Despite the seriousness of coming to terms with and beginning the real healing work that the death of a child/sibling involves, After Iris is not the morbid story it sounds like it should be. Certainly not when the Babes rats drive into Blue's classroom, dressed and sitting in remote controlled cars. Nor when they are sent off to visit Grandma's in Dorset, who has some wacky ideas of her own about children. And there is a softer side of friend and enemy relationships that are more true to life than usually depicted in novels for middle graders.

The whole thing is narrated in the first person by Blue. Some of the chapters begin with movie transcripts that describe what she is filming followed by diary entries that continue the filmed episode. The transcripts move the story along more quickly that straight narrative. And there is lots of humor and funny bits that keep you going in this well written novel, even as we watch compassionately when the family's coping strategies begin to fall away.

After Iris is definitely a novel about coming to terms with death, but it is also a novel about Blue's own personal process of coming of age, which involves but is not limited to learning to accept the death of her twin sister.

After Iris is a novel not to be missed.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was borrowed from a friend

This review was originally posted at Randomly Reading

British? Check.
Diary form? Check.
Dysfunctional, yet close-knit family? Check.
Lots of descriptions of food? Check.

I was never not going to love this book.

Such a great book! Almost 5 stars for me. Hope this will be a Nutmeg someday.

Not what I expected, but it was cute. Blue records her family as their life seems to fall apart years after her twins death.

The Gadsbys are fascinatingly dysfunctional, kind of a Leaving the Bellweathers kind of quirky. Blue is definitely easy to relate to; Twig and Jas are so cute; Flora was a pretty believable teenager. Zoran is a terrific big brother, and Jake seems like a great friend for Blue. The tone was complex but not heavy, poignant but age-appropriate.

This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.

Three years ago this December, Blue's twin sister, Iris, died in an accident, and nothing has been the same since. Blue's parents pack their work schedules with lots of international travel so that they don't have to be home. Flora, Blue's older sister, has developed a flair for the dramatic, complete with colorful hair dyes and a new boyfriend. The younger siblings, Jas and Twig, like their new Bosnian au pair, Zoran, but they find him an unacceptable replacement for the constant presence of their mom and dad. And Blue has become a shadow, hiding behind her video camera and observing the world, but rarely engaging with her classmates, or the friends who knew her when Iris was alive. Something has to change, and everyone knows it, but who will make the first move?

When I first heard about this book, I was drawn to it, but also wary. I tend to avoid "death books" because they often upset me far more than they should, causing me to lose sleep and feel generally uncomfortable for a long time after I finish them. I was worried that this book would take place quite literally "after Iris," thinking that perhaps the story might even begin with her death. My expectations, as it turns out, were quite shortsighted, and what I found in this book was not morbid despair, but a hopeful optimism, as Blue and her family slowly learn how to move forward with their lives without forgetting the person they loved and lost.

This is a beautifully written middle grade debut, which stands out because of its unique writing style, its quirky characters, and its focus not just on losing a sibling, but on coming together as a family. The chapters alternate between Blue's video diary, which includes transcripts of various moments she has caught on film, and her written commentary on her family, friends, and school life. Blue is a quiet, introspective character, but her subdued personality is complemented wonderfully by the big personalities of the rest of the kids in her family. Though the main plot is always about Blue trying to integrate back into her life in the absence of her twin, subplots about a community theater production, Zoran's own troubled past, and the younger siblings' rats provide action, drama and humor where otherwise Blue herself is very passive.

The family in the story - as well as the author herself- are British, and at least partly because of that, this book kept reminding me of Hilary McKay's novels about the Casson family. The only Casson story I've read myself is Saffy's Angel, in which Saffy learns she is adopted, and I noticed a lot of similarities between Saffy and Blue, from their clueless parents to their own pain and isolation. The relationship between Blue and Flora is also reminiscent of the sisterly relationship among the girls in the Sisters Club books. The blurb on Goodreads also draws comparisons between After Iris and The Penderwicks, but I'm not sure Penderwicks readers, who are used to light neighborhood adventures, would necessarily be drawn to this deeper story about love, loss, and moving on.

All in all, though it is difficult to describe this quiet novel, it is definitely worth reading and sharing with sophisticated readers of middle grade realistic fiction in grades 4 to 8.