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Summary
Summary
Living in the isolated rural community of Unity, fifteen-year-old Celeste struggles to fit in while she is assigned to marry an older man with five other wives, expected to raise children, and watches as other teens leave the community to survive in the outside world. Original.
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Celeste lives in Unity, a community centered around the strict religious ways of the Movement, and one of their chief tenets is polygamy. Celeste's impending fifteenth birthday means she will soon be assigned a husband, though secretly she harbors doubts. Her impure thoughts simple and recognizable teen lust are 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 damning Celeste's mother, one of her father's five wives, is dying because her womb can't handle her seventh straight baby, yet community doctrine prevents a doctor's interference. Such specifics make this an infuriating book about faith which is entirely appropriate.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2008 Booklist