A broken bone--and heart--finds Serenity at a major crossroad. Her leg's in a cast, the power's out, and Serenity's bored stiff. Searching for answers and willing to risk everything, Serenity gets serious about some major life changes. There's healing for the broken--and unexpected new challenges--in this transforming story.
This one is Serenity at her best and worst. But, ultimately, she is truly being herself. She has been becoming slowly more and more Christian, but still questions it. Her mother has come to accept this, but also, still questions it.
Feh, this definitely went hard-and-heavy on the religious conversion and persecution-complex fronts. It isn't all bad—Serenity takes a leap where she genuinely starts exploring the Bible of her own will, and comes up with some very valid questions about faith and Christianity (although many of them feel somewhat outdated). On the whole, the parts where Serenity is taking the initiative to learn and explore feel genuine and meaningful.
Ms. Baxter returns with complaints about using a Bible in a history class (which, for the record, I do find a little odd because I thought Mr. Grandy was an American history teacher). However, I do think that the book became a little bit disingenuous as Ms. Baxter began making more vehement protests. While her character previously """oppressed""" Mr. Grandy by forbidding him to discuss his personal beliefs, in this book she goes so far as to say things like, "Has anybody told you any ancient superstitions?" and "Did they mention The Jesus Seminar proved most of the Bible false?" I did some research for my review on Stepping Out, and here's the thing: teachers have to discuss religion objectively. This means that teachers may not make personal endorsements, but nor are they allowed to speak out against another religion.
In other words, because Ms. Baxter explicitly condemns Christianity specifically, she herself is failing to separate church and state. While I could see someone arguing that this makes her character a hypocrite, the fact that no one draws attention to this makes me think that the point of Ms. Baxter is to demonstrate how Christians are silenced by the system—and not to hash out how religion plays out in a school environment. (There's a teacher who wears a hijab, and Ms. Baxter never comes for her, for example.)
Random comments:
*not sure I like the use of the word "gimp" *Serenity's mom makes the comment that "no really intelligent person believes the Bible is true!" which I think is interesting for her character to say *the joke about sexual frustration was kind of funny but I definitely didn't get it until I was yesterday years old
Also, this series is very persistent in its use of White Jesus. Sadly.
She still wants to hook up with Derek but Kimberly is still dating him. bcuz of her accident that happened she has to use a bed pan. lol. she's laying in bed when the power goes out, and she can't find anything she can do...until she reaches under her bed and finds the Bible. she reads it and askes her friends questions when they drop off her homework the next day. she goes to the doctor to get her cast off and she goes back to school, she is praying to God more, i can't wait to read the next series!
It does get a little preachy, but I really enjoyed seeing religion from a teenager's point of view. Especially in a household that isn't religious at all. I hope I can find more volumes to get more of the story.