After, Amy Efaw

Hardcover: 350 pages
Publisher: Viking Juvenile; 1 edition (August 11, 2009)
Bookmarks: 4 Bookmarks


Devon Davenport is a straight A student, a potential Olympic soccer player and fighting for her life when it's discovered that she's hidden a pregnancy and literally thrown away the baby in the trash.

With an explosive beginning, After pulls at the heartstrings with the question, HOW? Throughout the story you get to know Devon and the type of life that she lived. Growing up in a single parent household, she was driven to succeed where her mother did not. She rigidly decided that she would not become the type of woman that her mom was, one who was in an out of relationships with various loser men. So when Taylor lets her guard down and allows herself to become intimate with a guy, she loses her sense of reality.

A tough and disturbing look at what happens to the teen who has abandoned her newborn in a trash can, the psychological and emotional response of the person who shuts down and doesn't allow herself to feel the pain that she should be feeling.

Amy Efaw obviously did her homework on this topic and pulls it together without any judgment of how she feels about the topic. Devon Davenport is every high school girl with goals and how these goals breakdown when a moment of weakness affects her. The story then goes on to whether Devon should be tried as a juvenile or adult when it comes to attempted murder of the infant. Trying to break through the shutdown of her client, Dom, Devon's lawyer does everything she can to wake her up. But will Devon wake up in time to save her own life?

I really loved this story up until the very end. I'm not sure how one could've ended this type of story, but I felt like I was cheated of something and can't quite put a finger on it. It's what really keeps me from giving it a glorious five bookmarks. I absolutely recommend this book, but be warned that it really is a tough subject matter, but it is beautifully written.