International club jersey with embroidered team badge and anatomically-placed mesh. 100% polyester. Imported (Not Branded)Ruth Ramsey believes in teaching her Health & Family Life class honestly and openly, something she has done for 15 years. When the 'new' brand of sex education allows only the teaching of abstinence, and involves untruths, she finds it a hard pill to swallow, and more than once has to go to a 'retraining' session. She is a very reluctant and less than perfect abstinence teacher.
Tim Mason, the coach of Ruth's daughter's soccer team, The Stars, is a devout Christian with the Tabernacle. He is also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict with an ex-wife, remarried to a good Christian woman, and a daughter on the team.
After The Stars win, leading up to the championship match, Tim and assistant coach, John Roper, sit on the ground with the girls and lead them in prayer - much to the horror of Ruth.
The pressure Ruth has been under for the previous six months with the evangelical right directing how she teach her class, wells up and she unleashes on Tim.
Despite the title, this book is a story of two protagonists; both with a variety of problems, including divorce and custody issues and developing crises in faith; one with his religious belief and one with her life's direction.
Tom Perrotta starts the story with Ruth, then introduces the life of Tim. In my opinion, he stays too long with Tim for the rest of the book and not enough with Ruth - which only matters because the title makes the reader expect a different view. However, the richness of detail and struggle of all the characters are very real and highly believable.
The basic premise of where the US education system is headed with the rise of evangelical outspokenness and direction, remains strong throughout, without ever getting in the way of a very human story, which touches on other issues concerning the religious right, such as gay marriage and a Christian marriage.
This book could have done with a slight reworking of the structure, and the ending was perhaps too predictable, but for the depth of characterisation and detail, and an overall good story, it's a worthy read.
Hannah Quinn is an Australian author with a variety of national awards, produced plays and public readings to her credit. Novels and plays are her main focus when writing, but she also loves writing articles, short stories, ebooks, poetry and ballads. She is currently working on her fifth novel 'Olivia's Breath'.
Hannah co-owns Too-Write! an editing and professional writing service, specialising in resumes/cvs, including answering Selection Criteria, tertiary assignments and business writing. She moderates The Creative Corner too-write.com/creative and The Job Jungle jobs.too-write.com
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