The Beauty of the Moment Genres: Coming of Age, Diverse Books, Young Adult Buy the Book • Goodreads
Susan is the new girl—she’s sharp and driven, and strives to meet her parents’ expectations of excellence. Malcolm is the bad boy—he started raising hell at age fifteen, after his mom died of cancer, and has had a reputation ever since.
Susan’s parents are on the verge of divorce. Malcolm’s dad is a known adulterer.
Susan hasn’t told anyone, but she wants to be an artist. Malcolm doesn’t know what he wants—until he meets her.
Love is messy and families are messier, but in spite of their burdens, Susan and Malcolm fall for each other. The ways they drift apart and come back together are testaments to family, culture, and being true to who you are.
One of my favorite books of the year so far is The Beauty of the Moment, this book has everything I love all packed up into 320 pages. A love story for the ages, a coming of age story for our time, this book a timely story. Malcolm and Susan are not two kids who would most likely end up as friends, both very different from different worlds yet, both dealing with serious life issues their worlds collide and the rest as they say is history. Susan’s life in Saudi Arabia was perfect, yet her life as a recent immigrant in America is not. Malcom’s life is far from perfect and he is far from a “good boy” but their friendship empowers and heals them. I loved this book. A book about life, growing up in a place where you feel you don’t belong and how sometimes your friends are the family you make for yourself.
