Say a Little Prayer
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Saved! meets Casey McQuiston in this wry, heartfelt tale of a teen who's taking her church camp by storm—one deadly sin at a time.
Riley quietly left church a year ago when she realized there was no place for a bi girl in her congregation. But it wasn’t until the pastor shunned her older sister for getting an abortion that she really wanted to burn it all down.
It’s just her luck, then, that she’s sent to the principal’s office for slapping a girl talking smack about her sister—and in order to avoid suspension, she has to spend spring break at church camp. The only saving grace is that she’ll be there with her best friend, Julia. Even if Julia’s dad is the pastor. And he’s in charge of camp. But Riley won’t let a technicality like “repenting” get in the way of her true mission. Instead of spending the week embracing the seven heavenly virtues, she decides to commit all seven deadly sins. If she can show the other campers that sometimes being a little bad is for the greater good, she could start a righteous revolution! What could possibly go wrong? Aside from falling for the pastor’s daughter . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this brash and irreverent novel, Voris (Every Time You Hear that Song) employs comedic energy to critically outline one bisexual teen's relationship with religion. Seventeen-year-old theater kid Riley Ackerman faces suspension after she slaps a classmate for shaming her older sister about her abortion. To avoid administrative punishment, which would result in her removal from her high school musical production, Riley elects to write an essay on the seven heavenly virtues and spend her spring break at a Baptist church youth camp, despite having avoided church for the past year: "I don't want to sit in a musty chapel and listen to Pastor Young talk about all the different ways I'm going to hell." At camp, she grapples with childhood insecurities surrounding her congregation's teachings, catches feelings for the pastor's daughter, and endeavors to "prove Pastor Young wrong by committing all seven deadly sins." Conversations regarding the effects of Riley's predominantly white Midwestern Baptist community's ideals on morality and her sense of self are handled with verve via incisive prose and the protagonist's acerbic, self-assured narration. Ages 12–up.
