Helpful Score: 2
When 16 year old Taylor comes out to his parents they ship him off to be deprogrammed. Taylor and his parents seem to belong to one of the fundamentalist western mega-churches, which are short on reason, forgiveness and rationality. The program they send him to Straight to God is a *terrible* place, not just for gay and lesbian teens, but for teens who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and with other problems. Taylor is a Christian, and does not reject God, because his church rejects him. There is a good amount of theology in this novel, which I appreciate. This very good novel gets four and not five stars for an inexplicable choice that Taylor makes at the end of the book...
"There was something really creepy going on in this place, I decided. I felt like I'd landed in the middle of this horror flick, maybe one where some of the people were real people and some were aliens, or had been real people but had been taken over by some supernatural force. It was almost like I could go up to some of them and rip their face off and there'd be this hideous creature underneath."
"There was something really creepy going on in this place, I decided. I felt like I'd landed in the middle of this horror flick, maybe one where some of the people were real people and some were aliens, or had been real people but had been taken over by some supernatural force. It was almost like I could go up to some of them and rip their face off and there'd be this hideous creature underneath."
Helpful Score: 1
This book is suscessful on many levels. It's a good quick read with characters that we care about, a story-line that draws you in and an important message. It also allows you to perhaps see things in an all-new way. What more could you want from a novel?
