Hiding Pregnancy

Here's a secret about my listening to books on tape, sometimes I can't wait to get to the next disc and know it's taking too much time so I'll try to see if the library has a copy of the book I'm listening to. At my current library this means walking through the teen section sometimes to get to the fiction area. This is where/how I stumbled into After by Amy Efaw.

The titled caught my attention as it begs the question, after what? After a teenage girl leaves her baby in a trashcan moments after giving birth. The story starts with the main character, Devon, being arrested though she continues to maintain she didn't have a baby even though all evidence points to the fact that she did. It's interesting to see the book through Devon's perspective after the pregnancy is over. The reader gets to decide along the way if Devon is a cold hearted teen or in such deep denial she never acknowledged her pregnancy.

It was very interesting to read this short novel and my only wish was that it had been a little longer to add some more detail. It felt like some piece of it was missing and I still can't decide if it was missing the pregnancy part which was sort of the whole point, or if it really was missing something the reader actually needed.