Red
Ratings1
Average rating5
15
Ratings1
Average rating5
Moving to Hawthorne was something Tess and her mom never anticipated, but after Tess’s mom loses her job, it’s their only option. Tess’s grandparents welcome them into their home, but with the condition that Tess and her mom attend church, something Mom isn’t too pleased about. But Tess enjoys the church community, finding a place in youth group and the church choir. Faith fills a void Tess didn’t know she had.
After a very personal decision goes public, Tess faces daily harassment and rejection by her former friends, and singing in the church choir is no longer an option. When she meets some kids in the music room, her only place of solace in the school, who don't judge her for what's happened, she learns to find her voice again. Against the backdrop of the Spirit Light Festival, Tess will need to find the strength to speak out if she has any chance of ending a silent cycle of abuse in Hawthorne.
Reviews with the most likes.
This is a really lovely, moving book about a couple of really important topics that aren't written about very often in YA these days–a Christian faith community + abortion. Like...a lot of American teens are at least nominally Christian and plenty of them do believe in God. But they don't necessarily want to be reading capital-C Christian Fiction. Anyway so, I think this will really resonate with a lot of teens. Also I loved the role music plays in the story and in Tess discovering her own voice. This is great for fans of like Deb Caletti, Jen Mathieu, etc.
ALSO, I always feel like this will come across as damning with faint praise, but it's fairly short! We as a society need more short YA books! Not every teen wants a big brick novel and not every novel needs to be a big brick!
This lovely YA novel takes two topics the evangelical christian church is currently on the very wrong side of - sexual abuse and reproductive rights- and weaves them into a story about courage and heartbreak and forgiveness. It's a book that should be on youth library shelves, and that I'm sure will be banned as soon as Republicans find out about it.
I could imagine exactly this scenario from my own upbringing - and the reactions would have been largely the same. The author's note at the end, tying her narrative together with The Scarlet Letter, sheds light on how some things never seem to change - and yet her book manages to bring hope. Very well done - will happily read more by this author.
