April 1, 2009
Gr 8 Up-Celeste was born into Unity, an isolated polygamist sect. Faith, purity, and obedience are the strictures that her family and community live by. Now 15, the age at which she must marry, Celeste experiences thoughts and feelings at odds with her apparently safe and well-ordered world. She is attracted to a boy her own age, but she knows that the Prophet assigns girls to older men. Her mother's life as a fifth wife is sad and limited, and the woman almost dies during a difficult pregnancy with her eighth child. The story of Celeste's intellectual and emotional awakening is told through the eyes of three teens: Celeste herself; her younger and more faithful sister Nanette; and Taviana, a secular street girl who is taken in by the cult and then kicked out. Many have left cult life, but for Celeste the struggle to discover her true self is huge and the outcome is less certain. How can she choose between her beloved family and the outside world with all its dangers, temptations, and opportunities? The characters, from the multilayered Celeste to the elders of the cult and the confused boys whom Celeste encounters, are all believable individuals engaged in their own struggles. The attractions and rewards of life within a well-ordered hierarchical system are portrayed, as are the inevitable abuses of power and the destruction of the human spirit when choice is not an option. Celeste's struggle is long and hard, and her ultimate choices are realistic as well as satisfying. This novel gives depth and nuance to an experience that is portrayed without subtlety in the popular press."Carolyn Lehman, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA"
Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 15, 2008
Grades 9-12 Celeste lives in Unity, a community centered around the strict religious ways of the Movement, and one of their chief tenets is polygamy.Celestes impending fifteenth birthday means she will soon be assigned a husband, though secretly sheharbors doubts. Her impure thoughtssimple and recognizableteen lustare further stoked by her true-believer sister, Nanette, and Taviana, a former teen prostitute taken in by the Movement. The story shuttles between the first-person accounts of the three protagonists, and although their voices are sometimes too similar, their accounts of subservient life are fascinating. When Taviana is kicked out of Unity, the difficulties of adjusting to civilian life are clearly illustrated. Although Hrdlitschka is careful not to condemn, her details are damningCelestes mother, one of her fathers five wives, is dying because her womb cant handle her seventh straight baby, yet community doctrine prevents a doctors interference. Such specifics make this an infuriating book about faithwhich is entirely appropriate.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)