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The Beauty of the Moment centers around the lives and loves of Susan Thomas and  Malcolm Vakil, both high school students living in Mississauga, Canada. Susan, like the author Tanaz Bhathena (pictured), was born in India and later  migrated to Canada. Bhathena’s  critically acclaimed earlier novel A Girl Like That was nominated for the 2019 OLA White Pine Award.  In her second novel she refers to Susan and her mother migrating from Jeddah, Middle East, whereas her doctor father has remained behind, ostensibly to wait for a replacement. Though her mother talks about her love life in colorful terms — a sort of Bollywood romance with a runaway couple and "villainous parents”— the truth is that Susan’s parents are separated and on the verge of divorce. Meanwhile, Canada-born Vakil, though his parents are from Bombay, has family problems of his own: his mother died of cancer some years ago and his father has married a second time. His father has physically abused him and his sister Mahatab as he has been unable to cope with the death of his former wife and Malcolm is unable to forge a relationship with either his father or his step-mother.
The story is told through alternating chapters from the points of view of Susan and  Malcolm. The plot is a version of the usual boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finally wins girl. One has a sense of déjà vu when reading the book because one instinctively knows that all will work out well at the end. In spite of the predictable ending, Bhathena manages to engage your interest in the characters. There are a host of secondary characters some of whom are interesting enough and are well portrayed. One such example is Alisha, who is Susan’s best friend in Jeddah, with whom she tries to keep in touch in spite of the time difference and their diverging life styles and the other is Mahatab, who finally manages to negotiate some sort of peace between Malcolm and his father and step-mother.

A critical problem the book posits, which is mentioned on the cover page, is, "Why fit in when you can stand out?” Bhathena reflects on this through several of her characters. Susan is a stereotypical Indian girl, always expected to excel in her studies and achieve straight As, and it is obvious that she is being forced to fit the mold and become a doctor (like her father) or an engineer (as per the wishes of her mother) when she is a gifted artist and all she wants is to study art on a full-time basis. Alisha, brought up and still living in the strict confines of a probably conservative Indian family in Jeddah, is expected to go through with the usual bride-viewing ceremony. She is quite distraught when she hears that her prospective bridegroom was interviewing four other girls as well. Although the same age as Susan, still finishing high school, she is already meat for the marriage market. One of Malcolm’s friends goes by the name of Steve Patel, although his real name is Smaran Patel; he is probably a bit ashamed of his Indian ancestry and his "skin color.” He wants to "fit in” and spare the Americans the trouble of having to pronounce his name correctly.
Susan’s difficulty with driving seems to parallel the problems, both academic and emotional, that she faces in her own life which seems to be going out of control, and it’s Malcolm who finally comes to her rescue.
What saves the novel from becoming a trite love story is the way Bhathena counterposes the romantic elements with the family problems that both the protagonists are going through. It is a pity that Bhathena did not expand further on the family issues and show more of the interactions between Malcolm and his dad. The sudden volte face in their relationship seems a bit rushed, and one feels the ends are too neatly tied up to provide a happy ending.                   F. G.