Title: A Moment Come
Author: Jennifer Bradbury
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Release Date: June 25, 2013
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Source: eArc provided by publisher through edelweiss for honest review

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Before India was divided, three teens, each from wildly different backgrounds, cross paths. And then, in one moment, their futures become irrevocably intertwined.

Tariq. Anupreet. Margaret. As different as their Muslim, Sikh, and British names. But in one moment, their futures become entirely dependent on one another's.

While the rest of India anxiously awaits the upcoming partition that will divide the country into two separate religious states, eighteen-year-old Tariq focuses on his own goal: to study at Oxford. But for a Muslim born and raised in India, there is no obvious path to England—until Tariq is offered a job translating for one of the British cartographers stationed in India, tasked with establishing the new borders.

Margaret, the cartographer’s daughter, has only just arrived in India. But already she has discovered it to be hot, loud, and dull. She can’t go anywhere alone for fear of the riots and violence. Eager for a distraction, she finds one in Tariq.

But it’s Anupreet, another member of the staff, who has truly captured Tariq’s eye. She’s strikingly beautiful—but she’s a Sikh, so not someone Tariq should even be caught looking at. And yet he’s compelled to…

Against the backdrop of the nearly forgotten history of the partition of India, Jennifer Bradbury, as if with strands of silk, weaves together the heart-pounding tale of three teenagers on wildly different paths, on the verge of changing each other’s lives forever.


What makes us fall in love with a book? Well for me it takes a few different things. I need to relate to the characters, feel like I understand the setting and fall in love with the writing style. When I started A Moment Comes it seemed like I would hate this book because everything expect for the writing style was missing. It had the makings of a book I would feel nothing for, yet it turned out to be the exact opposite.

The characters were so far removed from my way of life that I was immediately sucked into their world and their culture. I think when I read that they were from India and were there during the conflict between Sikhs and Muslims i did not know how I was going to react because I have never been through something like that, and to tell you the truth, the children in this book should not have had to go through something like that. The religion and their treatment of woman was something that I knew about from news etc. but reading it in this context where they are characters that I am invested in made my heart break. There were moments when I would sit back and stop reading because I didn't think I would be able to go on.

I loved the way this book was written because it was in three different perspectives. One Muslim boy who has aspirations of getting out of India and away from the violence and attend Oxford University. Another was a young Sikhs girl who was, a time before this books beginning, attached by some men and it left with a lifetime reminder on her face. And the last one is a young British girl who is on "vacation" with her mother in India while her Father works for government trying to separate India and Pakistan.

These three voices were so different and gave a different perspective to someone like me who had no idea what to think. I found it extremely interesting to read the perspective of Tariq, who is the young Muslim boy who wants to go to Oxford. He works for the British girls father in hopes of getting his approval to attend Oxford and go home with them, but what I found so interesting was his views of his own country and how much he contested what was going on. I loved that.

This novel was a wonderful surprise for me because of  how much I related to these character. They are all young, and they are all trying to find themselves a place in the world. And honestly we all do that no matter what religion we are, or the color of our skin. This novel felt true the culture as far as I could tell and the characters felt real and honest. It is such a heartwarming read that everyone needs to read.