It's hard when you barely see your mom: Reflections on "After" by Amy Efaw

I’ve been reading a book called After by Amy Efaw. As I read this book it kept me going. I like the fact that it's very intense. When I chose this book I read the back of it, and I had no knowledge of what it was going to be about. But as I read this book. it was interesting because it started out with a girl named, Devon. She has a mother who smokes and is out with guys, therefore she is never there for her.

Devon is pregnant and her mother did not know. In the story she was laying on her couch with blood all over her stomach. As this was happening cops were looking for a person who had done a crime, but yet again the book didn’t mention what was going on.

I like that its a mysterious book and has you thinking what's going to happen next. But so far what I've read I think that Devon is the person they're looking for, and since she’s pregnant she doesn't want to have her baby because she's fifteen. She somehow either gives birth or does an abortion on her own and throws out the baby in the dumpster.

When the cops found the baby it was still alive they are looking for the person who abandoned the baby or who was set to kill it. Devon is unconscious therefore she doesn’t know what she is doing or what’s going on. I read a little of chapter two and found out she starts reacting when shes in the hospital. She starts screaming in her head, "Take me home, I don’t want to be here!"

I am enjoying After, by Amy Efaw because it is a story from a young girl’s point of view who has a pregnant but does not know what to do with it since her mother isn’t a good example of a mother role. An example of what I mean is on page twelve: “Don’t you think I’d know if my own daughter’s pregnant? What kind of mother wouldn’t know her own daughter’s pregnant? What kind of mother . . . she’s so responsible . . . Do you hear me? Are you even ... listening to me?”

I think this absolutely shows how her mother isn't there for her. How couldn't she know? It also says in the story that she comes to the room and says she hadn’t seen Devon for weeks.

So far, the characters in After remind me of something important in my life. I’m currently living in a a time where plenty of young girls at age 14-17 are getting pregnant. Like if I was in Devon position, I definitely wouldn't know what to do. Also since I barely see my mom, I don’t know what her reaction would be. She knows she taught me better, but you know. It’s hard when you barely see your mom.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of this book because I want to see what they do to Devon and if they shall blame her for what she did when shes only fifteen. What’s probably going to happen next is that they'll find the baby in the dumpster and it's her's. She probably did an abortion physically without intentions. She didn’t know what to do. They blame her for what she did but it was her fault. She may go to juvenile center for what she did.