Friday, December 11, 2015

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes - OPTIONAL

Oakes, Stephanie The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, 396 pages.  Dial (Penguin), 2015.  $18.  Language: R (43 swears, 17 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG (mild sex talk); Violence: R (beatings, bloody, hands chopped off).

Minnow Bly loved in the Kevanian cult for 12 years – until the prophet ordered her hands chopped by her own father because she refused to marry the prophet.  Someone set the cult’s camp aflame and Minnow managed to escape, but in her confusion and rage, she deeply injured someone else.  Now she is in a juvenile prison, where she will remain until she is 18 and will be transferred to adult prison.  What brought Minnow to this place in her life?

Oakes draws a deft look at life behind bars and weaves in the tortured life of a young person brought into a rigid cult by her parents without any choice.  If there just wasn’t so much blood, violence, and language, this could a have a much wider audience.  Its more than about life in a cult or life in a prison.

HS – OPTIONAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher

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