The Beauty of the Moment
Written by Tanaz Bhathena
Narrated by Soneela Nankani and Neil Shah
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Tanaz Bhathena
Tanaz Bhathena is an award-winning Zoroastrian author of contemporary and fantasy fiction. Her books include Hunted by the Sky, which won the White Pine Award and the Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize, and The Beauty of the Moment, which won the Nautilus Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her acclaimed debut, A Girl Like That, was named a Best Book of the Year by numerous outlets including The Globe and Mail, Seventeen, and The Times of India. Born in India and raised in Saudi Arabia and Canada, Tanaz lives in Mississauga, Ontario, with her family.
More audiobooks from Tanaz Bhathena
Magic Has No Borders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Girl Like That Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Of Light and Shadow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Beauty of the Moment
Related audiobooks
The Truth Project Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Hate & Other Filters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Losing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dating Makes Perfect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silence that Binds Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Zara Hossain Is Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wider Than the Sky Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mariam Sharma Hits the Road Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Running Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harley in the Sky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If It Makes You Happy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Symptoms of a Heartbreak Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Here to Stay Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roman and Jewel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Problem with the Other Side Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Undoing of Thistle Tate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Words Composed of Sea and Sky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMalice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Things We Never Knew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Three Two One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is Not a Love Scene: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Where the Road Leads Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Summer of Bitter and Sweet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Glimpsed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Signs Point to Yes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Were Beautiful Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Knockout Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some Other Now Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sound of Stars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Young Adult For You
Ender's Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hate U Give Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Firekeeper's Daughter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Divergent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Insurgent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Girl Survives in This One: Horror Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crave Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poet X Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Grace Year: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Butterfly Assassin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These Violent Delights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Selection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Concrete Rose: A Printz Honor Winner Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's Kind of a Funny Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stepsister Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anatomy: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Me (Moth): (National Book Award Finalist) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Downstairs Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Looking for Smoke Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sadie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Life With The Walter Boys Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crush Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shiver (Shiver, Book 1) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Clap When You Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Beauty of the Moment
31 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Totally charming and emotionally satisfying.
Nothing ground-breaking or amazing is presented, merely an adorable romance with a couple of non-white kids told in alternating points of view. The characterization is solid, the pacing perfect, but the dialogue is weak at times. Overall, the book's strengths outweigh its flaws by a wide margin and I highly recommend it.
A big fat thank you to MacMillan who kindly sent me a copy of this book for review. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An extremely satisfying story. Both Susan and Malcolm could have slid into caricature and make this funny. Instead, they're full of depth, complicated and extremely likable. Supporting players are both realistic and interesting as well. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to read the author's first one soon.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not bad. Good for teenage age range with some familiarity of the culture.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed this YA novel. I live near Mississauga so it was neat to read about places I’ve been to in a book. A sweet story with great perspective
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Susan and Malcolm bring to life a believable high school romance full of dating jitters, first love, family conflicts and pressures. I like that this story was set in Toronto and is relatable for Canadian teenagers. This book will definitely be finding a home in my high school library collection.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Susan Thomas and her mother are settling in their new home in Canada while her father finishes up finding a replacement for his medical practice in Jeddah. Both parents want Susan to ace her senior year, and be ready to apply to university in either engineering or the medical field. Susan, however, is an artist, and would like to have more of a say in that decision. The book alternates between her and Malcolm, whose family dysfunction and fracturing has led him to be labeled quite the bad boy. I enjoyed the nod to Bhathena's earlier book--a drawing of Zarin, a former school mate of Susan's back in Jeddah. A Girl Like That really stuck with me and when I realized this was by the same author, I grabbed it at the library right away.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Susan Thomas is a South Asian teen who has been deposited in Mississauga Ontario for her final year of high school after spending most of her life in Saudi Arabia. In addition to the universal struggle to fit in at high school, she is also feeling adrift in her own cultural identity; “too Saudi for India and too Indian for Saudi,” and now being forced to buy into her father’s vision of the Canadian dream. Like many immigrant children, or children of immigrants, Susan has a lot of pressure on her to succeed, and to succeed by her parents’ narrow definition of what success looks like. This is often delivered via what Susan calls “the brown parent lecture.” Success for certain does not include dating troubled boy Malcolm, and yet together they help each other find the courage to reconcile with their parents, and to stand up for what they want for themselves.I’m sure many students will relate to Susan’s situation; struggling to fit in at a new school in a new country, a first (forbidden) boyfriend, mean girls, fighting parents with high expectations, exams, university applications, and more. Many may also appreciate the culturally-diverse characters in the story and how Bhathena weaves real world events, like the Syrian refugee crisis, into the story without ever being didactic.I’m going to expose my white privilege here and admit that at first I was discomfited by the use of the name Susan Thomas for a person of Indian heritage. Part of the importance of reading own voices novels is to challenge our own assumptions about race. As Susan says “my name has more to do with my religion than my nationality . . . my name is as Indian as any other.” I’ll remember that.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I absolutely love this book. I have always loved romance novels, and this book had the perfect blend of romance and other stuff to make it the perfect novel for me. The fact that it showed the point of view from both people just made it so much better!