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Jan 15, 2009

Needleroozer rated it:

M.E. Kerr must have written this book after I stopped reading young adult fiction, because I had never heard of it until Gish recommended it to me.

The story is told from the viewpoint of a teenage fellow, a junior in high school. His sister, Evie, has always been different, masculine, good at repairing machines, a strong worker on the family farm. Their mom tries to get Evie to look and act more feminine, but Evie maintains that's just not the way she is.

Then Evie falls i More...

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Oct 29, 2011

Chandra rated it:

Things i love about this book: Evie (I'd totally have wanted to date her), Parr (he reminds me of my own brothers), and that this story is told through Parr's perspective.

It's an open, honest exploration of how being gay affects on only a person's life, but the lives of those around them.

I read this around the time that I was figuring out my own sexuality and it struck me deeply. Not because of what Evie, the lesbian older sister of the narrator, experiences, but for how Pa More...

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Jul 19, 2010

Lindsay rated it:

Deliver Us From Evie is a great book for middle level students that promotes a productive discussion about homosexuality. Readers will come to empathize with the secrets that have to be kept in Evie's community and begin to questiont their own thoughts and beliefs about which characters they relate to and how they feel about homosexuality. Deliver Us From Evie is also a great book because it addresses and dispels stereotypes about many different groups of people. The plot explores social injusti More...

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Oct 07, 2011

Leann rated it:

Evie and her family learn to accept who she is as a lesbian. The story is told through the voice of Evie's younger brother who really doesn't have a problem with Evie except that if she leaves the farm he will have trouble leaving, too. This book is obviously older since it deals more with the "coming out" than with the relationship Evie has. But, it does do a good job of portraying Evie as just a regular person. Other characters have pretty outdated ideas about homosexuality, which is More...

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Feb 11, 2009

Nichole rated it:

I thought that it was a good story, and I enjoyed reading from the brother's point of view. I liked the discussion about being a butch lesbian vs. being femme, and would have liked to hear more about what Parr's thoughts really were about his sister. However, I thought that the dialog often got confusing, and the narrator didn't have very strong characterization; even though he was telling the story, I feel as though I never got to learn much about him. Too many of the characters were stereot More...

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Aug 27, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

This story of 18 year old Evie, a lesbian growing up in a farming community in the Midwest, is told through the eyes of her younger brother, Parr. Evie's style fits the stereotype of the more masculine lesbian, but as you read you realize there is so much more to her; just like there is so much more to any person than a stereotype. The family and community also seem stereotypical, but as the story evolves, they are much more complex than originally thought. Evie's family has prejudices, but they More...

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Jan 14, 2009

Marcia rated it:

Subjects: First love, sexual identity/orientation, lesbians, stereotypes, prejudice, family life, farm life, and religious beliefs. Kerr has been citied as one of the pioneers in realistic fiction for teenagers. Deliver Us From Evie was one of first books written on the subject of lesbianism for young adult readers. Sexual identity is a very realistic teen anguish with deep emotional feelings. Our society shuns individuals whose sexual preferences are not “the norm”. Books such as Deliver Us Fro More...

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May 14, 2008

Amy rated it:

Can you help when you fall in love, or who you fall in love with? No. Love just hits you like a poison dart, and there is nothing to be done. But, while this is the common answer for boys and girls or men and women who fall in love, the world has harsher standards when a girl and a girl fall in love. Imagine living in a small farm town in Missouri, and finding out that your sister is in love with another girl from the community and has been sneaking off to see her frequently. Well this is e More...

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Oct 27, 2009

Vanessa rated it:

can't believe the reviews said best m.e. kerr book ever.
maybe the fact that the lesbian sister is portrayed almost completely unsympathetically was what wowed them.

although realistic in some ways, do NOT give this book to any budding teen lesbians you know, unless you want to drive them to despair.
might be an ok book for that Midwestern dyke you know who's in her 40s and wants to identify with all the crap she went through.

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Nov 18, 2011

Rae rated it:

Deliver Us From Evie is a good, book an interesting view point because of her brother, and it all from a by stander. The topics are stereotypes, lesbianism and that your place in the world and responsibility. A good book, good characters, and topics the only thing i miss is that the author doesn't tell you what happens to Parr, Evie and Patty. But otherwise a very good book.

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Apr 13, 2011

Group rated it:

Evie is an 18 year old independent girl. She wants nothing more than to run her family farm until she meets the banker’s daughter. Told from the perspective of her brother Parr, it follows the hardships of Evie as she goes against the grain of what is throught of as right. We recommend this book to high school students due to the content.

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Feb 12, 2011

Vfields rated it:

This is a youth book short and sweet. An eighteen year old farm girl falls for a girl from the other side of the tracks and the problems that develop due to everyone’s two cent. It does have a good believable ending that makes the entire book work so well. Bravo to the writer can’t wait for more. Memorable.

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Dec 12, 2009

Janie rated it:

I thought this was about a cult, but it turbed out to be about something completely different. It was about this Missouri farm family coming to terms with their daughter's sexuality. The plot wasn't as great as it could have been, but I did like the whole Patsy angle. Overall, not bad.

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Dec 04, 2009

Andrea rated it:

Told from the POV of a younger brother, it's the story of Evie, a small-town farmboy butch who falls in love with the femme daughter of the richest man in town. A butch-femme love story for young adults, with a discussion of class? Why is this book out of print?

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Dec 17, 2009

Elvis rated it:

Ha .. first off, this book gets an extra star b/c it's about gay teens.

2nd, it gets a half-star cos it's about the dykiest bulldyke teenager ya ever did encounter in a young adult novel!

The book, in general, is not amazing, but really funny.
The main character chain-smokes, tells utterly corny jokes, "does the work of two men" on the family farm...so thoroughly a dyke stereotype, but that of the toughest trucker butch on the block! hilarious.

More...

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Aug 21, 2008

Steffany rated it:

I read this novel for a young adult's literature class I took as part of my teacher education program. In general, I think that it's a good book to bring up LGBT issues, combining them with the topic of expectations. Told from the point of view of Evie's little brother, the reader is in his shoes, learning gradually just how "different" Evie is in their farming community. Unfortunately, the narrator also got on my nerves a bit, and I often struggled to sympathize with him. Still, I More...

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Aug 09, 2010

Sarah rated it:

I guess for the time period it's ok, but otherwise, meh.

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Oct 07, 2008

Lisa rated it:

I have always seen this book around and I finally read it. It surprised me! This book is set on a farm and I am taking an extensive class in farming, and I found that a lot of what the author said corresponded to what I have been learning. I also found that the family structure was interesting. I even went so far as developing a little crush on Evie, the main character-- she's such a cute butch thing! I liked this book a lot overall, but it is definitely written for young adults. If you ar More...

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Dec 22, 2007

Debbie rated it:

Parr is the youngest son in a farming family. His older brother, Doug, is away at college and his older sister, Evie, is working on the farm while she awaits her turn to go to college. Parr does not want to be a farmer and can't wait to leave his small town.

When Evie, who has always seemed a bit on the masculine side, starts dating Patsy Duff, daughter of a rich man in town, the proverbial shit hits the fan. Life doesn't turn out the way Parr and his family planned it, but it does More...

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Jun 11, 2010

P rated it:

Way ahead of its time.

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Aug 28, 2008

Paige rated it:

I have always disliked that this book is written from the straight sibling's perspective, however strategic a choice it might have been for the author. But I remember it as having the first depiction of a butch/femme relationship between queer women that I came across. So I don't love it, but it was important to me when I was a queer youth. I just always wanted more about the queer sister/her girlfriend, but that isn't the focus of the book.

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Feb 25, 2008

Jakey rated it:

I have a memory of reading this book in elementary school, but i bet it was more like freshman year of highschool. I wasn't out to myself even yet, but I was so psyched there was a sympathetic queer major character. I read all the other M.E. Kerr books in the library and decided that Kerr or someone in thier family was gay because of all the queer side characters. anyway, good books for the young un's.

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Jun 07, 2007

Jay rated it:

I was a big M.E. Kerr fan in junior high and high school...so much so that the little old children's/YA librarian in my hometown public library would usually save any new ones that came down the line for me. This was one of those books. I think it's a wonderful, particularly because it's from the POV of a straight sibling.
Oh, and I had a total crush on the cover illustration.

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Aug 22, 2008

Lisa rated it:

In a small-town in Missouri, Evie is expected to take over the family farm when she graduated high school, but as her sexuality is revealed, it changes everything. While the characters were stock, the story was well-developed. I found the way the parents dealt with the slow revealings of Evie's sexuality especially engrossing.

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Nov 08, 2007

Lee rated it:

It was fantastic, i'm not sure if it's been turned into a film but if not I feel I should mention that i wanted to play the part of Evie badly. This was a great book, slightly predictable but so well written that my sarcastic tounge did not wag at it.

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Jan 21, 2008

James rated it:

This book is like really good. Its abou this girl evie who is different from everyone else. Set in the middle of a small farming community you learn about excaptance you and also of others.

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Dec 17, 2009

Jessica rated it:

This was... okay, but not the greatest. I'm sort of iffy on this book. There were parts I really liked, but overall, not one of my favorite LGBT YA novels.

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Sep 11, 2011

Jack rated it:

It's nice to read a book which doesn't try to show that the road of homosexuality always inevitably leads to catastrophe.

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Mar 15, 2011

S. Bell rated it:

See, I didn't love Evie that much. The small-town, old-fashioned feel was interesting though. So much prejudice!

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Nov 16, 2008

Alisha rated it:

It is a good book about a girl who falls in love with another girl but she is one of the rich people.

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