After The Moment is a novel about boys, love and violence. It is also the story of seventeen year old Leigh Hunter and how his first foray into true love shapes the man he is in the process of becoming.

There is a girl on the cover of this novel. It is probably meant to be Maia Morland, who is not only the object of his first love, but a self-described train wreck of a girl. The girl on the book is so pretty, however, that she could easily be Leigh's girlfriend, Astra Grein. Astra is not a train wreck. She is the girl every boy at Leigh's high school wants. Astra is the girl with whom Leigh is sleeping, but not the girl with whom he is in love.

In any event, it is a girl, and not a young man on the cover. Several blog reviewers (and the people leaving comments on blogs) have had a problem with this fact. One young woman said:

"Since there are White girls on more than half the covers it doesn't stand out.

Now if there was a guy on the cover, I would've stopped to have a look.

Its sounds really good, but [I] won't read it anytime soon. Its hard to handsell a book with the wrong cover.

A blogger who gave the book a smart, thoughtful review also asked, "How confusing to have a girl on the cover?"

Here's the thing: according to Houghton, boys do not buy and/or read YA novels. Even YA books written by men have girls on the cover. So that's why there's a girl on the cover.

I LOVE that reviewers think After the Moment is a convincing portrait of a young man. But the people whose job it is to sell books decided to put a girl on the cover.

Sorry, and all that jazz, but really. Can we table the cover discussion?