Devoted

April 20, 2015
Rachel, the second sister of 10 children, attends Calvary Christian Church in Clayton, Tex. When she’s not at church, she cares for her younger siblings and household, “learning how to be a wife and mother; a helpmeet with a cheerful countenance.” Unlike her older sister, Faith, 17-year-old Rachel struggles to accept this apparently inevitable future: her father makes her destroy A Wrinkle in Time, a book that he says dishonors the Lord, and Faith corrects her for unintentionally defying “biblical femininity.” Employing first-person, present-tense narration, Mathieu (The Truth About Alice) draws readers close to the drama raging in Rachel’s mind, while she performs repetitive, stifling tasks. When her parents discover her most brazen sin, defying her father’s order to avoid “those who have left the flock,” they present Rachel with a choice: attend a camp she fears will brainwash her or leave home. This exploration of life within and removed from a fundamentalist community makes for riveting reading, all the more poignant for the sympathetic characters in both worlds. Ages 12–up. Agent: Sarah LaPolla, Bradford Literary Agency.

April 15, 2015
Rachel tries to be devoted to her fundamentalist Christian church, but she's finding it increasingly challenging. Her large family belongs to a Quiverfull-movement church that emphasizes female submissiveness, modest clothing, no birth control, and a rigid interpretation of the Bible. She's been kept isolated from the world but uses a computer to manage her father's business as she reluctantly awaits her own future husband and numerous children. She's naturally inquisitive, and that leads her to discover the blog of escaped church member Lauren, whose pithy commentary on the religion's abuse helps Rachel re-evaluate her own situation. Her forbidden computer explorations exposed, Rachel's threatened with the punishment of a harsh church camp used to brainwash straying teens. Her believable first-person narrative, which chronicles the navigation of her complex emotions of fear, longing, and tender love for God and her family, is both engaging and deeply moving. Her eventual escape attempt is inevitable, and her encounters with the outside world are sympathetically drawn as is her life within the church. If some elements of the plot seem too easy, they do not mitigate the effectiveness of Rachel's tale. An engaging, illuminating, but never sensationalized portrayal of one plucky teen's self-discovery and pulling away from a controlling, restrictive (and real) religious movement. (Fiction. 11-16)

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May 1, 2015

Gr 6 Up-Traditional patriarchal belief systems stress that girls should be under the control of their fathers until they marry at very young ages and are then placed under the control of their husbands. Rachel Walker, a Born Again Christian teen, is one of 10 children whose family follows this plan until something from the outside world tugs within her. Rachel learns that Lauren Sullivan, a girl who escaped from this community a few years ago, is back in town working at an animal hospital. Through emails, Rachel finds that she and Lauren share similar radical ideas. Lauren sends the protagonist a line from a poem by Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do/With your one wild and precious life?" This haunting question gives Rachel no peace, but she knows that the answer for her is not to follow in her mother's footsteps. When a neighbor tells Mr. Walker that Rachel was seen at the animal hospital, he decides to send her to a religious retreat that will reprogram her to become obedient again. This proves to be too much for Rachel and she gets Lauren to rescue her. Rachel's courage allows her to follow a new destiny that will honor her precious life. Many teens will have no difficulty in rejecting the strict tenets of Rachel's faith. Readers will be drawn into her anguish even though the outcome will come as no surprise. VERDICT Devoted chronicles that calling to pursue one's heart's desire, a feeling that most teens will connect with and understand.-Lillian Hecker, Town of Pelham Public Library, NY

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Starred review from June 1, 2015
Grades 7-10 *Starred Review* Rachel is the second oldest girl in a family that has been amply blessed with 10 children. Her life is filled with helping homeschool the younger kids, keeping house, attending services at the Calvary Christian Church, and otherwise preparing for life as a good Christian wife. In all this activity, Rachel manages to hide a secret passion for reading and a frustration with prayer. When her mother lapses into a depression after a miscarriage, and her father forbids her to read, Rachel wonders if she will be able to endure the long, dutiful years stretching out for the rest of her life. Then Lauren, an older girl who had been banished from the church community, returns to town. After an exchange of e-mails, Rachel is intrigued by Lauren, particularly when Lauren cites a quote from a Mary Oliver poem: Tell me, what is it you plan to do / With your one wild and precious life? With the same frankness used in her debut, The Truth about Alice (2014), Mathieu sensitively depicts Rachel as she grapples with myriad aspects of her religious confusion. This thoughtful, character-driven study of one girl's struggle to reconcile her strict, conservative Christian upbringing with the modern secular world is an exceptionally nuanced treatment of religious choice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)