Book Review: "Pure"

I'm going to go out on a limb here and be 100% honest... I only picked up this book because the concept seemed like it would be somewhat of a trainwreck. In my experience, it always seems like any story that places way too much emphasis on virginity -- for or against -- tends to come off all sorts of wrong, unrealistic, and oftentimes... unintentionally hilarious. Even the cover of this book made it feel like this wasn't even going to take itself seriously. But actually? I was wrong.

Well, it still placed an unrealistic basis on the topic of virginity -- how many people would become religious zealots because one of their friends broke their purity ring promise and end up trying to shove their beliefs on an entire school? -- but the story itself, for the most part, is pretty good. There's a lot of emphasis on how one person's actions tend to have a ripple effect far beyond just that of themselves and their immediate life.While the details may be a bit overdramatized, the general message is not if you look past the specific details they're pushing. And I think it's actually handled pretty well in that respect. Giving this one a 4 star rating!