The Infinite Moment of Us

Myracle, Lauren. The Infinite Moment of Us. Amulet Books, 2013.

Wren's parents are living their dreams through her.  She has early acceptance to a pre-med program and is on track to fulfill their wildest dreams as she becomes a doctor.  But she wants to go to Guatemala for a year and help people, building houses and educating people, etc. Once she finally gets up the courage to tell them, her parents can't understand why she'd want to do that.

Charlie is a foster kid.  His younger foster "brother" is in a wheelchair and gets bullied at school.  Charlie isn't in Wren's league, but he loves her from afar.  Then Wren and Charlie fall in love, and the rest of the book follows their romance as they decide what they'll do with the rest of their lives.

I'm not exactly the best person to review a romance, since I don't like romance novels.  They're just not my thing.  But I can drag myself through a romance if there's enough other things going on.  And this book had a lot of potential - the protagonist with no backbone who realizes what she wants to do, the bullying and foster kid issues, etc. But none of that was really touched on.  The whole story was Wren and Charlie in love, Wren being mad because Charlie was taking care of his foster brother (did I mention the kid's in a WHEELCHAIR???), Wren and Charlie in love again, Wren and Charlie having sex for the first time, Wren and Charlie in love... you get the picture.

I agree with other reviewers who say that this is a great, healthy example of teen sex.  Charlie gets tested, Wren goes on the pill, they actually talk about it and wait until they're both ready and they do it safely.  I like that. And I'm sure this book would be popular with the kids at my school who love romantic stories, but I wanted more depth and more discussion of all the issues that just seemed to disappear because they're too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other.

Recommended for: teens
Red Flags: Charlie's foster brother gets burned with a lighter, Charlie mentions his birth mom's abuse of him, Charlie and Wren have sex - at least two fairly graphic scenes
Overall Rating: 3/5 stars