After the Moment (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Leigh Hunter, 17, moves from New York to Washington, DC, to help his stepsister Millie cope with the death of her father. Maia Morland, a recovering anorexic and self-mutilator, eats her meals with the Hunters as part of her recovery. At first Leigh wants only to keep her safe but finds himself falling in love. He eats so that she will eat. She's raped (and filmed) by three prep-school classmates on his one night away from DC. In the background, bombs drop on Baghdad, and Leigh discovers that nations, like preppies, can justify anything. The author's feel for character and voice has never been better, and Leigh narrates with deep intelligence and heightened feeling. He's a complex and fully fleshed out protagonist. Millie is an especially vivid supporting character—precocious and hyper-verbal, wide-eyed yet cosmopolitan. Maia, however, around whom so much of the narrative revolves, sometimes seems too lightly drawn. She's clearly tortured and is ultimately unreachable. The author's prose is at once spare and sophisticated, and the resulting mood gentle and furious by turns. Simple details—Leigh synchronizing bites of cake with Maia—evoke astonishing emotion. The DC suburbs are appropriately generic, and the guilty comforts of the prep-school world are thoughtfully presented. The story begins and ends four years after Leigh and Maia part, and a sense of tense foreboding moves the plot.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
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Review

"An expertly crafted story about a complicated first love." (Publishers Weekly )

"Not to be missed." (TeensReadToo.com )

"Raw...honest." (Booklist )

"Subtle, reflective, and emotional." (The Bulletin ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; 1 edition (May 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061860572X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618605729
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #517,260 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teenaged Characters Who Think Deeply About Real-Life Concerns, June 3, 2009

By	Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

Garret Freymann-Weyr's novels for young adults are inevitably distinct. Her teenagers seem serious beyond their years, deeply invested not only in their own lives but also in the often complicated lives of their adult family members. AFTER THE MOMENT is no exception, and its male protagonist further cements Freymann-Weyr's reputation as a risk-taking author unafraid of tackling topics, and taking perspectives, unusual in young adult literature.

Leigh Hunter is a recent college graduate, ready to embark on a career as an international journalist, when a chance meeting at a dinner party casts his mind violently back to his senior year in high school, when he first knew both love and heartbreak intimately. The summer before his senior year is filled with a different kind of heartache: the news that his younger stepsister Maggie's father has been killed in a car crash. Leigh travels from his mom's home in New York City to Maryland to comfort her, and when she asks him to stay, he agrees to spend his senior year at her school.

Leigh is adaptable and bright, and he treats the move as an adventure (especially when his school guidance counselor assures him that the transition might actually improve his college prospects). His only trepidation is being far away from Astra, his practically perfect, drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend. Astra is smart, confident, beautiful and self-assured. She assures Leigh that their relationship will survive even at a distance, but Leigh (who admits to himself, if not to her, that he doesn't really love her) isn't so sure, especially when he meets Maia Morland.

Maia is, Leigh reflects, "Astra's opposite in almost every way. Astra did not walk --- she strode, allowing her height, her strength, and her thoughts to take up as much room as possible. Maia, it seemed to him, let her thoughts swarm thickly around her, creating a shield of protection." Maia battles eating disorders, germ phobia, the compulsion to harm herself --- but she also has a thirst for beauty, a love of knowledge, and a vulnerable way of looking at the world that draws Leigh to her.

Leigh's mother is a romance novelist, a writer who crafts her stories to culminate with that magic moment when the male and female romantic leads finally connect. But what happens when that moment is only the beginning, when a love connection results in only more complications, violence, misunderstanding and heartbreak? In many ways, AFTER THE MOMENT is an anti-romantic novel, one that treats the mysteries of love and the agonies of loss as two sides of the same coin, one that recognizes that romance seldom ends with "happily ever after."

As in her other books, Freymann-Weyr here explores families that have formed, re-formed, broken and blended, all without losing their essential identity or their capacity for love. Her characters --- especially Leigh --- come off as remarkably mature and resilient, perhaps because they are so closely tied to the adults in their lives, perhaps because they have already become accustomed to change thanks to their shifting family lives. It's always refreshing, however, to read about teenaged characters who think deeply about real-life concerns, who have genuine relationships with the adults in their lives, who care deeply not only about their friends but also about the kind of world they live in.

AFTER THE MOMENT is a serious, at times sorrowful book, but it speaks volumes about the capacity of the human heart, no matter how young, to love and love deeply.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Touching Story...Great Read!, July 26, 2009

By	Darcy Wishard "libraryloungelizard.com" (Kelso, WA) - See all my reviews

Maia Morland is pretty, only not pretty-pretty. She's smart. She's brave. She's also a self-proclaimed train wreck. Leigh Hunter is smart, popular, and extremely polite. He's also completely and forever in love with Maia Morland. Their young love starts off like a romance novel--full of hope, strength, and passion. But life is not a romance novel and theirs will never become a true romance. For when Maia needs him the most, Leigh betrays both her trust and her love. Told with compassion and true understanding, After the Moment is about what happens when a young man discovers that sometimes love fails us, and that, quite often, we fail love.

The first chapter of this book opens with Leigh (the books narrator) seeing Maia at a dinner party a few years after they had initially met. His reaction upon seeing her tells us that he obviously still has feelings for her and that things were probably left unresolved. From there we go on to find out how Leigh and Maia met and about their heart wrenching love story.

After a death in the family, Leigh leaves his single mother to spend his senior year in high school with his father, step-mother and step-sister, Millie. Amidst a tragedy, Leigh knows that his emotionally stunted father is usually not the best shoulder to lean on.

Almost immediately upon arrival, Leigh is introduced to Maia, who he soon finds out is anorexic, has OCD and to top it off, depression issues (yes, wow). Despite these issues, Leigh feels an immediate connection to Maia which baffles him...after all, he's dating the perfect and popular, Astra Grein. But the more time Leigh and Maia spend together the more he finds himself falling in love with her. After Maia experiences a horrible tragedy, she feels betrayed by Leigh when he mistakenly betrays her trust out of his own anger and rage. They eventually part ways and don't meet again until the dinner party.

I really enjoyed this book but it is a really difficult book to review because of its depth. Leigh is a complex and thoughtful main character. Unlike most teens he is almost hyper-aware of the world and people around him, whether it's his mother, his relationship with his father, his life after high school or the war going on Iraq, Leigh always seems engaged in critical thinking.

Overall, a wonderful story about the complexity of family relationships today and the splendor and the heartache of first love. With the sexual situations and alcohol references, I think this book is best suited for 8th grade and above.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harmony Book Reviews, July 16, 2009

By	Harmony Book Reviews "Harmony" - See all my reviews

After the Moment is one of those books it's nearly impossible to write a review for. I've rewritten this countless times and I still don't think I can get it right.

After Moment is a book I think everyone should read. It's heartbreaking and merry, unobtainable and realistic. It made me cry but also laugh out loud. The characters are so well-developed and original and perfect (in the sense that they're unperfect). The plot was original and unexpected. I never guessed what was coming and after that, nothing happened as I was expecting. The ending, like the rest of the book, was so unexpected and it left me wanting more.

I realize this is a short review but I'm not sure what else to say. The book was amazing. You should buy it. End of story.