How It's Done
Grade 9 Up—Grace Passedge, 18, was raised in a strict fundamentalist Christian family, with a righteous father and a mother hesitant to make waves. When he refuses to let her attend the senior party, bans her from reading romance novels, and makes her promise to remain a virgin until marriage, the teen rebels. While accompanying her friend Liv to a lecture at a local college, Grace meets a dashing, worldly professor who sweeps her off her feet and leads her into breaking her father's rules. She soon finds herself engaged to Michael, suspecting she might be pregnant as she plans her wedding, and wondering if she is doing the right thing by marrying someone with whom she has so little in common except good sex. When Liv betrays their friendship, and a new boy catches her eye, Grace is forced to make some important decisions about friends, family, and romantic relationships. Although it is difficult to envision the age difference between Grace and Michael, the characters are basically well drawn and believable. Readers will see early on that Grace is bound on a collision course, not because her father says her choices are wrong but because they go against her personal convictions. Unlike Jody in Valerie Hobbs'sLetting Go of Bobby James, or How I Found My Self of Steam(Farrar, 2004), Grace acknowledges the truth in the nick of time. She grows through her experiences, leaving the impression that she will be a stronger and better person.—Diane P. Tuccillo, City of Mesa Library, AZCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.