In the book The Beginning of After the main character is Laurel. She loses her parents and brother in a car accident and ever since they died she has not been herself at all. She changes throughout the book because she learns to grow and not blame David's dad, Mr. Kaufman, for killing her family in the car accident. As she's in her grieving process she sees sides and feelings that she has never seen or felt before.

She went from working so hard to get all good grades and going to school everyday to not really caring about going to school. Laurel goes through so much throughout this book. Depression, grief, the whole grieving proccess because of what happened to her family in such little time. Laurel and her Grandma live together and go through it together since she lost family to but has more experience since her husband died. She helps Laurel so she doesn't just shut down and give up on life.