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liralen 's review for:
Have a Little Faith in Me
by Sonia Hartl
That was fun. CeCe sends herself to Jesus camp in a bid to get her ex-boyfriend (who pressured her to have sex and then broke up with her once she gave in)...and not surprisingly, things do not go to plan.
Things I particularly liked: the camp is way more conservative than CeCe's family (and way, way more conservative than my own upbringing or current life), but they're not portrayed as evil or abusive. I've read a number of 'Christian camp' books with various premises in which the people running the camp are basically slimy abusers; here, while there are some people on power trips and a lot of religion-as-justification, they're basically just...people. With a different perspective. Which sounds a whole lot more like real life than 'all the conservative religious people are secretly terrible terrible people'. I also loved that there was just about no girl drama; CeCe gets to Jesus camp only to find that her ex has a 'camp girlfriend', and one who is sharing her cabin at that...but even when the truth comes out, although there's some awkwardness, there's not hair-pulling or back-stabbing. The girls in her cabin are basically just, again, nice girls who have different upbringings than CeCe.
What didn't work as well for me: There's a really heavy emphasis on sex, enough to get in the way of character development in places. I had a hard time believing that CeCe's cabinmates, who have very conservative backgrounds and have definitely never ever been encouraged to talk about or think about sex (especially, oh the horror, sex outside marriage), would suddenly be so forthright, and comfortable being forthright, about their new experiences.
I can't complain too much, mind, because it's clear that one of the major goals of the book is to provide some information about consent and the like to teens who might not be getting that info elsewhere. But I'm a little sorry that some of that space didn't go instead to developing the stories (the non-sex stories) of CeCe's cabinmates a bit more thoroughly.
Things I particularly liked: the camp is way more conservative than CeCe's family (and way, way more conservative than my own upbringing or current life), but they're not portrayed as evil or abusive. I've read a number of 'Christian camp' books with various premises in which the people running the camp are basically slimy abusers; here, while there are some people on power trips and a lot of religion-as-justification, they're basically just...people. With a different perspective. Which sounds a whole lot more like real life than 'all the conservative religious people are secretly terrible terrible people'. I also loved that there was just about no girl drama; CeCe gets to Jesus camp only to find that her ex has a 'camp girlfriend', and one who is sharing her cabin at that...but even when the truth comes out, although there's some awkwardness, there's not hair-pulling or back-stabbing. The girls in her cabin are basically just, again, nice girls who have different upbringings than CeCe.
What didn't work as well for me: There's a really heavy emphasis on sex, enough to get in the way of character development in places. I had a hard time believing that CeCe's cabinmates, who have very conservative backgrounds and have definitely never ever been encouraged to talk about or think about sex (especially, oh the horror, sex outside marriage), would suddenly be so forthright, and comfortable being forthright, about their new experiences.
Spoiler
I also think it a little ridiculous that when CeCe and Paul decide to do the deed, they don't even consider that in a few days they'll be back home, next-door neighbours with much less supervision—no, obviously the answer is to take a comforter out into the woods in broad daylight at a conservative Christian camp. Guys. Come on now. (Although for a camp obsessed with metaphoric chastity belts, it does a pretty terrible job of keeping teenagers from getting it on.)I can't complain too much, mind, because it's clear that one of the major goals of the book is to provide some information about consent and the like to teens who might not be getting that info elsewhere. But I'm a little sorry that some of that space didn't go instead to developing the stories (the non-sex stories) of CeCe's cabinmates a bit more thoroughly.