After the Moment

A new novel by the Printz Honor author Garret Freymann-Weyr, about a boy who discovers what happens when love fails us—or we fail love.

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.

Garret Freymann-Weyr grew up in New York City and often sets her books there. She went to college at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and received an MFA in film from New York University. She has written four books for young adults, including My Heartbeat, which won a Printz Honor for excellence in literature for young adults. Her books have been published in numerous countries including the Netherlands, Japan, and China. She currently lives outside Washington, D. C., with her husband. She has said that the best way to get ideas is to read a lot. “That gets you thinking in terms of story, character, and image.

Publishers Weekly

After his stepsister's father dies, good guy Leigh moves from New York to Washington, D.C., to support her and finish his senior year. There, he falls in love with "train wreck" Maia, a recovering anorexic, self-injurer and germaphobe, whom he tries desperately to protect. When a group of boys do "something unspeakable" to Maia, Leigh commits an act of violence that threatens his future and their relationship. Readers will appreciate how real this story feels, in its telling details and careful conversations, as well as in the murky motivations behind Leigh's actions and his whole relationship with Maia, which haunts him years later. As she did in My Heartbeat and Stay with Me, the author creates a wonderful, complicated but loving family for her protagonist. Readers may have difficulty tracking all the characters, but they will understand that each family member is there to support Leigh, from his emotionally challenged father to his romance novelist mother who constantly warns Leigh "that he didn't take enough time for what might please him-for what he wanted." This is an expertly crafted story about a complicated first love. Ages 14-up. (May)

Garret Freymann-Weyr is the author of My Heartbeat, a Printz Honor book, as well as Stay with Me, The Kings Are all Here, and When I Was Older. She lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.