Acquire Today After Composed By Amy Efaw Published As Publication Copy

book taught me a lot of things about the way people work, It taught me about how denial can be so strong that the lies become the truth, It taught me that no matter what you say or do, they all have consequences, I learned that it's not only the socalled 'bad people' who do these types of things, but the perfectly 'normal' and average people.
That anyone can fall and that it's important to get back up again, It taught me that panic is fear and vice versa, It taught me that trust in oneself, once broken, is hard to fix if you don't believe you can do it.
It told me that no matter how well you think you know someone, there's always something new.


At first, I wanted to read this book, After having it at my house untouched for almost two and a half weeks, I finally got around to reading it.
And it broke my heart, I fell in love with the main character, Devon, immediately, She's my age and has a life I can empathize with, whether it be because I know what school is like in that way or because I have friends who've experienced homes and families like hers.
She struck me as someone who was resolute and had so much to go for, I admired her bravery and her strength, At the end, though, was where I think she truly earned it,

What she did was something most people would never even put as a faroff option.
So completely . . selfless. She could've gone on as it was and taken the gift she'd been given, But she felt she didn't deserve it and her morals came even more into play, She's a truly amazing girl and I believe that Amy Efaw must be an absolutely splendid person to have caught both sides of this tragic story so eloquently.
After tells the tale of a teenage girl jailed after dumping her baby in a trash can.
Deep in denial, soccer star, Devon, can barely even admit that she was pregnant at all, She refers to the baby as IT a tactic that grows a little old throughout the course of the novel and wants to know when she can go home.
Charged with attempted murder, Devon enters the juvenile court system while her attorney fights to keep her client from being prosecuted as an adult.


An interesting topic, ripped from the headlines, How does this kind of situation happen The author spends a great deal of time establishing Devon's denial.
Too much for my taste, in fact, I think the book could have benefitted from some serious editing in the first half, I grew very impatient with Devon who I couldn't help but think was awfully dumb for a supposedly smart girl.
I understood she was in denial, but I wanted the pace to pick up a bit, Devon's slowness to answer even the most rudimentary question,instead delving into flashbacks or ruminations on minutiae wore on me fairly quickly.
pages into the novel I almost gave up on Devon, not because she'd committed the crime but because it was taking so long to move forward in the story.
Right about the point I reached maxmimum frustration, more interesting characters saved the day the defense attorney for one Karma, a fellow juvenile offender with an eyerollingly bad name, for another and suddenly Devon got it together or more together than she'd had it and the story grew more compelling by leaps and bounds.


One final note, Nothing, nothing can excuse this line: "Somewhere inside herself, maybe it's inside her heart, she feels a tiny drop of hope take hold.
" p.I'm sorry but, blegh! Nonetheless, this author has promise, What was this even I waited the entire book for something of substance to happened and then it fizzed at the end.
It felt like the author hadn't known whether or not she would finish this story and then decided after meandering that she would end it abruptly, without warning.
There was no connectionor lazy connection that would justify the main character's decision, Too much time was spent in Devon's head, getting her to remember and not enough time establishing her as a person who would do what she did at the close.
Another disappointment, courtesy of NPR, I have got to stop choosing books based on NPR reviews,

I was attracted to the concept of this YA novel, The author takes the idea of a baby found in a trashcan and the inevitable question, "how could someone do this" She traces the answer back to a root of extreme denial.
In this case, a teen girl Devon was in such denial about the fact that she'd had sex that she couldn't even allow the possibility of pregnancy to enter her mind.
When a baby suddenly popped out, she went into a complete, deranged panic, basically couldn't even acknowledge to herself that it was a baby, and desperately shoved it away from her into the trash.


I like this idea overall, and think it's ripe for exploration in novel form, Unfortunately, other than the concept, the whole thing pretty much stunk,

. TRITE. Every single character in this novel is a cliche, The slutty, flaky mom who had Devon when she was, Devon herself, smart and hardworking, who pretty much raised herself and is driven to be nothing like her mother.
The heartofgold, tough love soccer coach, The whipsmart female attorney with a soft side, The mean girl Devon meets in juvy shocker, she cuts herself!, And on and on and on,

. The courtroom stuff is WAY overdone, Too many pages are devoted to Devon's court proceedings, Every single one of those pages reads like a Law and Order script, Ugh.

. Terrible writing. Some sentences don't even make sense, Now, I will grant that the whole thing is written in the presenttense, which is very difficult to do.
However, as an author, you need to understand your own abilities, If you aren't good enough to write an entire novel in the presenttense, DON'T DO IT,

. The handling of Devon's emotions comes off as trivial, superficial, and immature, Nothing is very well explained, There is no real depth, The author missed a big potential opportunity in devoting more time and thought to Devon's sessions with the psychiatrist.
Her psychological state is very central to the book, so this is a big problem,

. Gratuitous use of gore. How many times to I need to read about blood in the underwear, milk squirting out all over the place, or "pulsating umbilical cord"s I get that birth is a messy process and that the trauma of it severely affected Devon, but as much time and attention as is devoted to the yuck factor is completely unnecessary.


. Finally, the end was a joke, It was not properly built into and it did not resolve anything, It's like the author got tired of writing, so with no forethought she suddenly launched into a swell of good and redemptive emotions, ending with the clincher, "She'd won.
" Yippee. It didn't feel like a win at all, but surely that's the appropriate sentence for ending a story like this one.
Social media has given people the ability to share their opinions about news stories, Whenever I read the comments under the stories, I find without fail harsh ethical judgments by other people.
No one ever tries to get into the mind of a person who would do something like this.
But people like me, people who have lived lives unbearably full of silent suffering, look around the world almost dissociated, apart from it, amazed that no one around us notices the struggle inside.

You tell yourself what you have to to get through it, The psyche is the most fragile bone in your body and your mind can do remarkable things to keep that bone from breaking.
Devon's reaction to her first institution is spot on, disturbingly real, All of these people around her are going through their regular days, expecting her to comply and she is still struggling to put herself together emotionally.
Fifteen is so young, so very very young, and your heart breaks for Devon, This was a fantastic book, Like Monster, it gives you a punch in the gut look into the mind of someone so many people would judge before walking a single step in his or her shoes.
. . Props to Amy Efaw. This author made me root for a girl who dumped her baby in a trash bag and feel empathy toward her.
Before reading this, I would have said "send her to jail, try her as an adult, who cares about her!" But after reading it, I care about the girl.
This author did her job, She made me feel exactly what she wanted me to,

Enter Devon: aboveaverage, smart, atelethic, goalorientedyear old girl, Everything is going for her unitl one day while babysitting she meets a guy, They end up doing the nasty, which is Devon's first and only time, then she decides she will never talk to him again.
She is ashamed of herself, She vowed she wouldn't be like her motherno sex, no relationships until way later in life, She has goals for her future, Something happens after she looses her virginity, she inverts, she starts lying to everyone, including herself, Months go by and she notices herself not feeling good, dragging, She will not admit IT to herself, One night while her Mother is working, she gets sick, So she thinks. She has stomach problems, but not really, She is pregnant and at this moment she is in labor, She panics. She cuts the cord with fingernail clippers, She dumps the baby in a bag, She takes IT out. She goes to sleep. No one knows. Only someone finds this baby screaming, and IT lives, The police eventually track it back to her and she ends up in prison, Will she be considered in trial as an adult or Juvienile What will people say about her What is going to happen to her future


This is another book that I will chant "READ IT, READ IT, READ IT!"
Seriously, this one doesn't feel like

a Young Adult book, this has relevance.
This book matters. This book opened my eyes and changed my opinion, Do I like it that the girl dumped her baby off NO! But, I do see what was going through her mind and can't help but feel sorry for her.
Good people can do bad things, Should she be punished Yes, Like an Adult No.

Sidenote: I am not endorsing baby dumping!!! There is no excuse for that, I really don't understand why these mothers wouldn't at the very least find a hospital or orphanage or somewhere/someone to give that innocent life to instead of just leaving it there to die!!!!


This and other reviews and other fun stuff over on my blog
sitelinkMessyhousehappylife We see these stories all the time but we never really get to know the girl.
I know whenever I read stories like these in the paper I think," How cruel! How can someone do such a thing" After reading this book, I am glad that I got a good insight on what goes on in the minds of these young women who dump their baby in the trash, I don't know who they are, and what they are thinking.


As the reader, we really see into Devon's mind and how she went through things, I felt for her because of her problems.
I would have never taken the time to get to know Devon after doing what she did.
Ms. Efaw did a wonderful job capturing every feeling, emotion, hurt, anger, rage and denial in this story.
The storyline was great. We saw Devon experience with the birth, arrest, and jail time, I am glad that I pick up this book and learned a whole bunch more than I expected.


If you have not, read this book, While I know not all cases are the same, it will give you a new perspective of what these women go through.
One morning some policemans found an infant in the trash can, They go to each apartment that is near that trash can looking for anything suspicious, In an apartment there was a girl named Devon that stayed from school sick, she told her mom.
The policemans had knocked on Devon's door and her mom had answered it, They came in and asked Devon some questions but she wasnt feeling well to understand what they were asking her.
Her mom had pulled the blanket that was over Devon so she can show respect to the policemans, but.
they had found something under that blanket, SO now Devon was arrested for throwing the infant away, Its a very good book,


WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS AND DISCUSSIONS FOLLOW BELOW,


Setting: Modern time in juvenile center and in court,

Conflict: Devon is getting blamed for throwing away the infant,

Devon: She's the main character, She's star player in her schools soccer team, she plays goalie, She has very good grades in school and she behaves, She is actually the one that threw away the infant but she is in denial because she didnt want to end up like her mom,and with a child.
But in the end she decides to go to jail because she knows that it wasnt right of her to throw away her baby or keep it a secret.


Dom: She is Devon's lawyer, She is very smart and is eager to win Devons case, The first case that she did was to decide if Devons case should be judged in adult or teenage case.
She wins the first case but in the end she is disappointed in Devon's decision on going to jail and admitting guilty.

.