M H Strom

it's a Christian novel, that has nudity....I was very confused with the whole idea of this book, it started out nice and simple with this girl liking this older artist dude, and then it turned completely towards a weird place full of Titanic style nude posing and kissing with her saying "no no no i can't have sex cause its against my promise to god to not have sex before marriage" and he respects that...by proposing... to a girl he's known for not even ONE WHOLE SUMMER and he converts to christianity and moves to colorado (from a sunny beach...hmm lets see sunny beach or colorado....i know which one i would pick) to marry her, they live in her house (as a married couple, yes her parents are Okidoki with sex under their roof cuz these two teens are MARRIED) until she GRADUATES from high school...which she has a whole year or two left of high school before that mile stone of graduation and then they all live happily freakin ever after. I have no idea what to make of this book plain and simple, it made my head hurt… (mer)

This is a love story between Zacch, who is 18, and Joanna, who is almost 16. Zacch is the local boy who likes nothing better than surfing and painting but has to serve in his parents’ store every day it is open. He is, though, pretty free to do what he wants and has a shack at the back of his parent’s house. Joanna and her parents are on a fortnight’s holiday from Colorado and are staying in the camp site near the beach.
Zacch and Joanna fall deeply in love and start to kiss, cuddle and explore one another’s bodies as teenagers do. But Joanna’s Christian conscience steps in before they go too far. Nevertheless, she allows Zacch to paint a nude portrait of her lying on his bed. He also paints a self-portrait for her to remember him by. Even though they have rather taken to Zacch, her parents start to rein them in, controlling what they do and how far they go from the camp site. It is really her mother who mis worried about Joanna becoming pregnant.
The second week of Joanna’s holiday is spent with them having to stay in sight of her parents most of the time except for one occasion when they bare allowed to go out for a meal and a movie. Otherwise they have to stay as a family.
The back of the novel then breaks. It becomes a Christian diatribe with a bit of a story interwoven. Inside a week Zacch is converted to intense religious belief and Joanna baptises him in the sea. The pair want to get married as soon as they can, hey have fallen so deeply in love with each other. Her parents, however, don’t even want to talk about this. In fact, they rather hope everything will die down after they return to Colorado.
In the end Zaacch and Joanna’s father have a heart-to-heart conversation. They agree that if Zacch can find a way to come and live in Colorado, then her father, using Old Testament precedent, will formally betroth her to him and not allow her to see any other man for a year. At the end of that time, when she is 17, they can marry.
Zacch applies to art colleges in Colorado but gets turned down by them all. However, the best college has a scholarship programme and are so impressed with him and his work that he wins one for the four years of the course. On the day of the interview, when he gets the news, he is in Colorado. He goes to Joanna’s house to tell her and her family the good news. It is also her birthday. Her father formally betroths them for a year. The condition attached to the betrothal is that there must be no sexual contact of any kind. Kissing and cuddling only are allowed.
The more I read of the second half of this novel, the angrier I became. Writers are told again and again that the golden rule of successful writing is to ‘show not tell’. The second half of this novel tells the reader how to run their life. It is a piece of what can only be described as Purity Movement Propaganda. Not only are abortion and gay marriage justified as totally wrong and immoral using quotes from Old Testament sources from a society at least 2,500 years old. (And societies that old are not our normal moral models.) In any case, in a free society, both topics are surely matters for individual consciences. Joanna’s father has taken complete control of her life. He dictates what and when she can do things, almost as though she is his slave. And surely at her age it is time that parents should start to withdraw control and be prepared to act as safety nets catching and comforting teenagers when things go wrong.
I breathed a sigh of relief for the couple when Joanna moved into Zacch’s apartment on the day before her 17th birthday and their wedding. I felt as though her life aas an independent person could finally begin within the intense love she and Zacch had for each other.… (mer)