|
The Abstinence Teacher | 
| Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
Category: EBooks
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $3.96 (28%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  102 reviews
Sales Rank: 1376
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000V76ZZG
Publication Date: October 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
"Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise kids. It's got the proverbial good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. It's the kind of place where parents are involved in their children's lives, where no opportunity for enrichment goes unexplored. Ruth Ramsey is the human sexuality teacher at the local high school. She believes that "pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power." Ruth's younger daughter's soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim belongs to The Tabernacle, an evangelical Christian church that doesn't approve of Ruth's style of teaching. And Ruth in turn doesn't applaud The Tabernacle's mission to take its message outside its doors. Adversaries in a small-town culture war, Ruth and Tim instinctively mistrust each other. But when a controversy on the soccer field pushes the two of them to actually talk to each other, they are forced to take each other at something other than face value. The Abstinence Teacher exposes the powerful emotions that run beneath the surface of modern American family life and explores the complex spiritual and sexual lives of ordinary people."
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 97 more reviews...
 Not a Good Novel September 27, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I picked up this book with anticipation. Having seen and really appreciated the film version of the author's novel _Little Children_, I expected a complex drama with interesting characters and lots of surprises.
Most of the book wasn't . . . bad. One thing that really stood out to me was how mundane many of the situations were. It felt like the author was just trying to pad word counts--including routine transaction dialog as one main character picked up his Saturn at the oil change place, for example. The "Christians" in the book were strawmen, caricatures. I have enough familiarity with evangelical culture to know that the characters in this book that are on the Christian side of the fence are exaggerated. The author makes them obnoxious and small-minded enough that they are not sympathetic at all.
Perhaps the payoff here is that the two main characters represent both sides of an intractable moral debate; each side is explained and humanized. In the end, however, one party turns out to be far more responsible and likable than the other, giving a sense that the author is using his biases to direct and manipulate the reader.
Also, I found the ending to be anticlimactic and depressing.
Fails to bridge the cultural divide September 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was drawn to this story by the reviews, both on the back cover and on Amazon. I was led to believe that the author portrays two people on opposite sides of America's culture wars in an impartial way. It is a difficult feat for an author to get into the skin of people with radically different viewpoints. Unfortunately Tom Perotta does not succeed in this quest. He fully imagines the political and religious attitudes of one character, but misses on the other. I suspect that the author himself falls distinctly to one side of the cultural divide. He makes a valiant effort, but he does not reach across that divide with impartiality. As a result, almost half of the characters in the story are offensive, pitiful, or both. The old writer's rule is still true: write what you know. This author did some research, according to his notes, but he could not or would not flesh out some of his people. That left me dissatisfied.
The writer does a good job creating sympathetic and believable persons out of the two main characters. He sets up an amusing and entertaining plot. There is real potential for hilarity and truth telling, but alas, the narrative does not rise to that level. Although a relationship between the two was an outlandish conceit, I was looking forward to their interaction. When they do finally interact, the result was an anticlimax. Some reviewers suggest that the story ended too soon, without exploring the fascinating possibilities of this relationship. That is true, but I was ready to move on to another author.
 If you want to think... September 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Many other reviewers have described the plot of this book better than I ever could. However, I can share with you my impressions. The "Abstinence Teacher" is a complex, nuanced book that avoids platitudes. The characters don't wear white and black hats --- everyone sports gray chapeaux. You'll bring your own prejudices along for the read, and you're likely to take away that which matches your own inclinations. An excellent, thought-provoking book.
 A satisfying read with nice descriptions September 6, 2008
I wasn't expecting too much from this book but it was a pleasant surprise. The plot is interesting, although it is not totally seamless in the way it unwinds. Nevertheless, the characters are interesting and the protagonist has a good voice. It has some unexpected aspects to it that keep the reading flowing forward.
Another Lesson About the Burbs September 4, 2008
This man really has a hate bag on for the suburbs.
Just as in "Little Children" two parents find their way into each other's lives.
Not as salacious as "Little Children" but still an excellent profile of adults trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. The writing is top notch and story is original, but I knocked off a star because the ending disappointed.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
