After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage and Self-Love by Alexandra Elle is my first read of 2025! This book is a reminder to be gentler to ourselves.
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A note from the Editor (aka me)
I’m actually really pissed right now because I’d had this review written up and everything on the WordPress app, only for the whole review to have been erased! So excuse me for my annoyed mood this whole review. I officially don’t trust the WordPress app with anything to do with my writing ever again. I’ll try to stay uplifted for this review though. It’s nothing to do with you guys. I love you guys! <3
After the Rain: First Thoughts
My first official thoughts about this book are pretty positive. I thought it was easy to follow and inspirational to those who are going through a transformational period in their life. I liked Alexandra’s writing and her adding stories about her family made it relatable. I came across this book while browsing my very long TBR list on Scribd/Everand, and I thought something light would be easier to transition into the new year.
After the Rain: 14 Life Lessons
The book is separated into 14 life lessons: Change, Self-Love, Soothing the Suffering, Time, Validation, Love, Becoming, Family, Learning to Breathe, Healing, Identity, Comparison, Dedication, Acceptance, and Forgiveness (A Note to Self). I liked reading about how each life lesson was learned because of a certain hardship or experience in her life.
My top favorite life lessons were Time, Love, Dedication, Acceptance, and Forgiveness (A Note to Self). In Time, she described her tumultuous relationship with her mother, and how that affected how she raised her three daughters. As someone who is very close to her mother, I related to that chapter because I grew up in a single-parent home, where my mom had such a hard exterior especially with me and my sister. Now that she’s older, she’s gotten calmer and her hard exterior has softened a lot. And that has made me think of how I want to raise my future children.
In Love, Alexandra described her relationship with her husband Ryan, and how they met and fell in love. Alexandra was really scared about starting over after having her first daughter at 17, and she didn’t think she was lovable with a baby. But Ryan reassured her that he wasn’t going anywhere and she finally learned to trust in that.
In Dedication, Alexandra described the very emotional journey of conceiving her two younger daughters, Ila and Maximus. Her story of countless doctor’s visits, procedures, and being let down after eight tries of “IUI (intrauterine insemination), a fertility treatment that involves placing sperm inside the uterus to increase the odds of fertilization” brought tears to my eyes (Elle, 2020). I don’t have kids, but I could feel everything that Alexandra was feeling in this chapter. The pain of miscarriage, wondering which method would work and what couldn’t, the doubt, the frustration at her body for not being able to produce a baby full-term, I could feel her and Ryan’s pain. At least now, at the time of this post being out, both of her younger daughters are [starting elementary school?]! It’s great to know that Alexandra and Ryan finally have the family they always wanted, despite the long journey.
Acceptance was another life lesson that I could relate to because it shared stories of Alexandra’s complicated relationship with her immediate family. Her uncle was like another father to her, and they used to be so close, spending every holiday, summer and winter vacations. Alexandra and Ryan even got permission from her uncle to marry at his house in 2016, because it was so open and warm there. But everything changed on Thanksgiving 2018, after an awkward conversation around the dinner table. Conversations about race (her uncle is Black and his wife is white) turned a normal family gathering into something worse. Since then, Alexandra and her uncle haven’t talked. This family rift is similar to my own recently, in that people in my family who were once close aren’t as close anymore or haven’t spoken in years. And all due to a huge incident in 2022 that can never be taken back. It’s sad how family ties that were once thought to be unbreakable are now fragile and unrecognizable. And now Alexandra has to think about what kind of family traditions she wants to keep or create on her own.
Forgiveness (A Note to Self) as much as Alexandra’s chapter was a letter to herself, I felt like this chapter was written to me too. It’s the only chapter that’s written in second-person point of view, but I still felt like Alexandra was writing to me. I liked how personable it was, and showed how forgiveness is more for yourself than the other person. You have to forgive yourself for all the mistakes and hardships you’ve made because they are what made you who you are.
After the Rain: Final Thoughts
After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage and Self-Love by Alexandra Elle is a beautiful collection for anyone who is on their journey towards healing. It’s also a good exercise for young women and writers to use for their own writing.
Comment Below: Share your thoughts on After the Rain by Alexandra Elle. Did you like it, love it or not?
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