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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/347143.The_Abstinence_Teacher?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Abstinence Teacher" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1189104327m/347143.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/347143.The_Abstinence_Teacher?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Abstinence Teacher</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15907.Tom_Perrotta">Tom Perrotta</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/12199207?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 2 of 5 stars<br/>Perrotta's latest installment uses public school health teachers and suburban soccer moms and dads to examine the war between liberals and evangelicals. For over ten years Ruth Ramsay let her motto of "Pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power" guide her teaching of human sexuality; in her classroom no subject was forbidden, but the envelope is eventually pushed too far when, in response to a student's vocal disgust over oral sex, she replies, "some people enjoy it." A student complains and cue the evangelical Christians, who have an amazingly easy time swooping in and getting the sexuality curriculum changed to an "abstinence only" approach - a philosophy that Ruth strongly opposes, yet must still manage to teach. In the aftermath of this controversy, Ruth meets her daughter's soccer coach - a former addict turned born-again evangelical Christian named Tim Mason, who unwittingly creates a huge mess the day he decided to lead his multi-faithed, community soccer team in prayer right before Ruth's very eyes. What follows is the story of an unlikely friendship born from the controversy, and a book that pretty much bored me throughout. I admit that my knowledge of Perrotta's storytelling is limited to film versions of two of his novels (Election, Little Children), but on the power of these two films and reviewers' commentaries I was expecting The Abstinence Teacher to be sharp, witty, mildly satirical, and funny when it needed to be. Instead, the story played a bit like a Lifetime Original Movie, none of the characters were particularly likable, barring one moment that I found mildly amusing it was decidedly unfunny, and I probably would not have finished it if it were not for the sake of this review which I now write. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, but in a word - meh. You can do better. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/166437?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>