After by Amy Efaw

Devon doesn't exactly know what's happening to her, but she knows it isn't anything good.  She hates screwing up and she's pretty sure that this time she screwed up big.  But she wishes that everyone would leave her alone for now so that she could deal with it later.  She's so tired, and it hurts so much.

This story opens with Devon lying on the couch in the apartment she shares with her mom.  She stayed home from school so she's home when her mom gets in from the graveyard shift at Safeway.  She's still there when the cops knock on the door asking questions about a newborn baby found tied in a garbage bag in the dumpster in the alley behind the apartment building.  And she doesn't move until her mother snatches away the blanket that Devon had wrapped herself in that morning.  The blanket that was supposed to absorb some of the blood.

Prepare for a horrifying fictional read based on the very real experiences and situations of some teenage parents of "dumpster babies" throughout the country.  And as horrifying as it all is, steel your emotions in order to meet and get to know the sympathetic and sometimes infuriating Devon -- the teenage girl who is smart, strong, and terrified.  Discover who she is, what she loves, and how she could possibly deny her pregnancy and throw away her baby girl.  Recommended to high school teens and each and every adult.
Call number: YA EFAW (Teen Room)

Reviewed by kate the librarian.