I think I speak for a majority of us (or at the very least, a majority of my female readers) when I say that our childhoods, especially our early teens were characterized by a great love for the social media phenomenon known as Wattpad.

Wattpad, a social media platform for writing and reading free books, had a huge impact on the way many of us viewed and even, very sadly, still view romance and the world as a whole today. Wattpad put forward so many unrealistic scenarios and cliché storylines that, now that I think about it, were so stupid that I really do question my taste in books at 13.

I’m talking about plots like a romance between the bad boy who’s not so bad and the nerd who’s supposed to be really repulsive to look at, but in reality fits perfectly into society’s definition of beauty; the poor girl who gets pregnant by her billionaire one night stand who’s already in love with her; the forever 24 year old CEO who falls in love with his female assistant; the scary guy with a secret soft side that he reserves for the equally toxic love of his life; and finally, arranged marriages with an unsurprising happily ever after.

You know, perfectly normal, realistic scenarios and characters.

I mean, realistic in a ‘probably never gonna happen, but if it does happen, it’ll only happen to white people’ kind of way.

Now, there were numerous books that took the Wattpad community by storm. When we think about Wattpad, books like The Bad Boy Stole My Bra, Chasing Red, The Bad Boy’s Girl, just to mention a few, come to mind.

And just when you think you’ve seen or rather, read it all, you have fan fictions.

I mean there were trashy books and there were trashy books. Fan fictions took the cake. There were numerous fan fictions: Justin Bieber fan fictions, Fifth Harmony fan fictions, Five Seconds of Summer fan fictions, you name it!

And then, there were One Direction fan fictions.

It was impossible to search ‘One Direction’ and not find a book with the title, Kidnapped by One Direction or with a Larry Stylinson tag – Harry Styles + Louis Tomlinson, cause their sexualities have always been debatable.

However, the one that stood out the most was After, a One Direction fan fiction trilogy and 300 hundred chapters of utter nonsense!

And that’s on…

I can’t exactly put into words a proper description of this very popular book’s storyline but I will try.

The extremely exasperating adventures of Harry and Tessa.

That actually wasn’t hard.

Reading After was like riding a rollercoaster, one that brought (even then) eye rolls, occasional God when’s and very frequently, heat to my cheeks if you get my drift.

Let’s just say:

My Teacher: Come!

Me after spending my 2014 Christmas break reading all 300 chapters of After 1-3:

Now, when After came out, it was a hit. And maybe it was because majority of us were 12-14 year olds, and after having our previous belief that babies came after and only after marriage proved false by our older cousins, we wanted to know what sex was about. I mean, cause dare you ask your African parents.

Are you norma?

So the movie…let me just begin by saying: Hardin?

Hardin Scott?

Best believe I’m referring to him as Harry throughout this review.

Even though I knew from the cringe worthy trailer alone that I would be irritated the whole time, I still sat down to watch the movie.

And I was greatly disappointed. I mean, disappointed but definitely not surprised.

Am I saying that it was trashy because of bad acting or…? It boils down to the fact that After was a trashy book so I knew not to expect better, even though I was hyped to watch movie.

However, the movie made the book seem even trashier by not conveying accurately the trashiness of the book.

Does that make sense?

The movie didn’t accurately depict the emotional rollercoaster that was Hessa’s (Harry + Tessa) romance. The scenes were rushed. The storyline was way too compressed, and I was left wondering at the end whether there were deleted scenes or I skipped some parts.

I’m just going to start off with the scene of Harry and Tessa arguing over Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. To the spectators unaware of the hidden meaning, it seems like they’re just really passionate about the book. But we, the audience, know it’s actually a metaphor for their toxic romance. It was an accurate enough description of that (to me) memorable scene, but it was only like 20 minutes into the movie and its appearance was way too soon.

People who read the book know that scene came after numerous chapters of Harry and Tessa fighting, in a way only they are capable of (that is, for 10 chapters, straight), and trying (but failing) to hide their very obvious feelings for each other. However, people who believe movies actually do justice to the books they’re based on are going be left confused.

He saw her in your towel, and they almost kissed because of a dare. Where on earth did the sudden feelings (the argument implied) come from?

There were numerous other scenes that didn’t do the book justice.

Harry sure as hell didn’t start spilling his guts about his father’s drunken past in the middle of his father’s wedding because Tessa asked nicely. It took numerous fights for him to give in and tell her.

And what was that lake scene?

Was it supposed to be steamy? Was it supposed to be PG 13?

The whole movie seemed like the director couldn’t decide on the rating cause some scenes weren’t as steamy as I remember and some tried too hard (and failed) at being as steamy as the director probably intended.

Nobody:

Hardin (not Harry, please): *bending down and making his voice unnecessarily sultry* I think you owe me a dare.

Me:

That was just embarrassing.

I just feel like a lot of important information was either not added or was downplayed. After giving the ‘ketchup on fries’ scene a second consideration, I understood a bit the essence of its inclusion – to give the audience of a hint that Harry was hiding something. But that was in no way enough.

What about the whole Harry not calling Tessa his girlfriend in front of his friends even though they had moved in together rollercoaster? Where was that shown in the movie? What about the times when Tessa had to hold Harry while they slept because he kept having nightmares?

WHAT EVEN WAS THE MOVIE WITHOUT THAT VERY CRUCIAL FACT?

Also, before Harry and Tessa moved in together, there were numerous things that hinted at the fact that Harry was hiding something like he insisting that they move in together and moving her stuff out immmediately she agreed without telling her, he not wanting her to be around his friends, etc. Without those hints, the audience (who didn’t read the book) are left thinking that the secret was an unnecessary complication in the movie when in reality, it was the thread that linked all the events!

 “But those are a lot of details to include, Vanessa and it would definitely have made the movie longer,” you say.

I would choose a long good movie over what was delivered. And honestly, I demand a remake! Even though the book itself was trashy, it was medium trashy.

The sight eyes endured was not medium trashy!

In addition, although Tessa definitely takes the trophy for being the most infuriating and spineless character I know, the movie didn’t do an accurate enough representation of the little backbone she did possess. It took way more than a little brush of Harry’s lips against hers before she gave in. There were numerous scenes where she actually remembered Noah, her boyfriend and even reminded Harry of him before she finally gave into his ‘bad boyish charms’.

Despite all that, I’m not as hard to please as some people might believe. I actually commend the actors that were used. They accurately conveyed the way I had visualized the characters in my head while I read in the book.

Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (the guy who plays Harry Styles) had attractive enough features to play the role, and he definitely had that British accent I had always imagined Harry having that would make my toes curl. His tattoos were almost as Anna Todd (the author) had described in the book although he lacked the numerous piercings that would probably be repelling on anyone else but Harry, of course.

Also, I absolutely love the choice of Josephine Langford as Tessa! She really gave me the feel of how Tessa can be annoying, self-righteous and smart yet stupid –a combination only she can pull off at once. Her choice of attire on the first day of school was so conservative and definitely Harry’s idea of ugly as depicted in the book.

The other actors were good enough choices.

So after delivering my verdict of this movie as absolute trash, does that mean that I’m not going to watch the sequel when it comes out?

Nope, imma still watch it.