By Tom Perotta
Liberals and the evangelists struggle to live together peacefully in idyllic Stonewood Heights, a small town in the northeastern US. Free spirit Ruth Ramsey teaches sex ed at the local high school and one of her daughters plays soccer for the local team. The commotion begins when Ruth admits to her class that oral sex can be enjoyable. Soon, members of the local church group are demanding a more conservative sex ed curriculum that teaches abstinence. Ruth also finds herself confronting religion problems at home as well, when her daughter’s soccer coach, Tim Mason, leads the team in a prayer after a tough win.
I really enjoyed Perotta’s previous novel, Little Children. Although I did not find the plot of this novel as absorbing as Little Children, I found the characters to be complex and well drawn. Perotta somehow manages to make both Ruth and Tim sympathetic as well as intriguing, and I was eager to see how things would turn out for these characters. The Abstinence Teacher is a quick and worthwhile read that also comments on some of our country’s most divisive topics, like separation of church and state, and the struggles between the liberal and the conservative viewpoints.
Liberals and the evangelists struggle to live together peacefully in idyllic Stonewood Heights, a small town in the northeastern US. Free spirit Ruth Ramsey teaches sex ed at the local high school and one of her daughters plays soccer for the local team. The commotion begins when Ruth admits to her class that oral sex can be enjoyable. Soon, members of the local church group are demanding a more conservative sex ed curriculum that teaches abstinence. Ruth also finds herself confronting religion problems at home as well, when her daughter’s soccer coach, Tim Mason, leads the team in a prayer after a tough win.
I really enjoyed Perotta’s previous novel, Little Children. Although I did not find the plot of this novel as absorbing as Little Children, I found the characters to be complex and well drawn. Perotta somehow manages to make both Ruth and Tim sympathetic as well as intriguing, and I was eager to see how things would turn out for these characters. The Abstinence Teacher is a quick and worthwhile read that also comments on some of our country’s most divisive topics, like separation of church and state, and the struggles between the liberal and the conservative viewpoints.
1 comment:
I do not insist on happy endings but I found the end of this book to be wholey unsatisfying.
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