Purity by Jackson Pearce - NO

Pearce, Jackson  Purity, 218 pgs.  Little Brown and Company, 2012.  $17.99  Content: Language: R (31 swears, 2 “F”; 8 God);  Mature Content: R (Mature activity);  Violence: G.  

Shelby’s mother died of cancer, but before she died she made Shelby make her three promises: to obey her father, love as much as possible, and live without restraint.  So for the last six years, Shelby has done everything she could to keep the promises, but when her father starts planning a Princess Ball for the community that includes a vow of purity, Shelby is concerned that promising to obey her father will conflict with living without restraint if she can’t have sex until she is married.  So Shelby goes on a quest to have sex in the five weeks before the ball.  Over that five weeks she learns that her best friend Jonas means more to her that she thought, and that maybe she was so busy listening to her dad that she was robotically obeying him without loving him as much as possible.  As it becomes clear that Shelby has misunderstood the promises she had made with her mother and allowed them to constrict her instead of living her life without restraint, Shelby starts to become who she wants to be on her own.  

I have loved this author in the past, but this book was very frustrating.  I felt like Shelby and her friends make sex too casual and that the premise of the book, having sex to keep a vow of purity, was completely contradictory and confusing.  I kept reading the book hoping that the ending would redeem the bad decisions she was making throughout, but it didn’t resolve in a way that justified the rest of the book.  

HS-NO  Reviewer, C. Peterson.