Rebellion, by Stephanie Diaz

In Stephanie Diaz's Extraction, sixteen-year-old Clementine is chosen to live among the elite, in the underground city apart from the surface.  She revolts against the class divisions, sees through the mind control of the leaders, and joins a rebellion, which takes shape in Rebellion.  Diaz's Extraction series shares many cliches with the growing YA, dystopian, post-apocalyptic genre: stratified society, underground cities, mind controlling drugs, relentless tyrants.  Comparisons to Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Rising are inevitable and accurate, even obvious.  But to be fair, this style didn't start with Katniss.  I think of The City of Ember (2003), The Giver (1993), The Handmaid's Tale (1985), all continuing a tradition dating back to George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, to Plato and Thomas More.

So it's not completely fair to call Rebellion derivative, even if it sort of feels like it is.  Diaz's hero Clem is really interchangeable with Katniss and Beatrice.  In Rebellion, Clem attempts to subvert the plans of her arch-enemy Charlie by fomenting rebellion.  Her attempt to conceal her identity is uncovered, and she once again has to rebel against Charlie's mind-control drug.  She proves herself willing to make sacrifices for the ones she loves, and must prove herself strong enough to resist the control Charlie wields.

Rebellion picks up the action immediately after the end of Extraction.  Fans of these first two books will be pleased/disappointed to know that Rebellion is quite the cliffhanger; book 3 won't come soon enough!  Diaz writes the action well, and Rebellion is fast read, but it didn't just grab me.  I have not read Extraction.  Diaz fills in the story well enough for me to have an idea of what's going on, but I have the feeling of starting a novel in the middle.  My recommendation: read Extraction first.

Diaz's style is heavy on the teen girl's mind, light on the sci-fi, which is appropriate for her target audience.  I had a hard time accepting the young people in the story being as decisive, wise, and capable as they were.  I admit, I'm a middle-aged sci-fi fan, but I was 16 once, too.  I also felt like the world Diaz creates wasn't very believable.  It seemed to have no infrastructure or depth, like a stage play or something.  Subjectively, given my reaction to Rebellion, I would give it a three-star rating, "It was OK."  But taking into account the target audience and the fact that I haven't read Extraction, four stars it is.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Damaged Goods, by Dianna E. Anderson

Dianna Anderson's new book Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity frustrated me, leaving me conflicted and disappointed.  The Amazon blurb reads, "Anderson's new sexual ethics draw on core biblical principles and set a standard for today's Christians that may be as influential Joshua Harris' I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Don Raunikar's Choosing God's Best, and Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity."  A new sexual ethic?  Yes, but here's a hint: she hates those books.

Anderson's goal is positive and admirable.  She notes that the "purity movement," with its emphasis on virginity and modesty, has left many young women burdened with shame and worthlessness.  This is no doubt true, as the women Anderson interviewed testify.  Women or girls who engage in sex, willfully or under coercion, before marriage can feel as if they are worthless, unmarriageable, and unredeemable.  The church needs to be a place of healing and grace through Jesus, no matter what choices we make or what we are victims of.

But Anderson goes too far in completely rejecting an emphasis on purity.  She describes it as anti-sex, quoting women who are unable to have a satisfying sex life when married because of "the idea that sex, no matter the circumstances, is a Bad Thing that requires punishment."  She even implicates the church in the "cultural acceptance of rape" for blaming the victims and creating "leniency toward rape and forgiveness for rapists."

Related to the purity movement is the emphasis on modesty.  She says the modesty movement argues "that men can dictate what women wear, and that women have a  Christian duty to keep their brothers from lusting."  Anderson counters that women are not responsible for the sins of men, and that their bodies are their own, to adorn as they wish.  Here she gets a little ridiculous.  Fashions change and every body is different.  A particular dress on some women is modest and on another is immodest?  Obviously.  This doesn't reflect a problem with a modesty standard; it simply reflects the fact that women come in all shapes and sizes.  Personally, I would not want a man looking at my bare cleavage, if I were a woman.  I agree with Anderson that women who wear "sexy" clothes (by whatever standard one might use) is not asking for rape, but if she then complains about men staring at her chest, well, I don't see that she has grounds to object.  And I certainly don't want men staring at my daughter's chest!

Anderson treats the purity movement, especially Joshua Harris's views, and the modesty movement as reflective of all of American Evangelicalism.  Sure, those views are out there, but in my experience at a Christian university and in Baptist and nondenominational churches in Texas and Michigan, it seems Anderson gives far too much weight to these writers.  While they must be flattered, and might hope to have the kind of influence Anderson attributes to them, I don't see it.

The larger problem I see with Anderson's book is her goal: a personal ethic of sexuality.  She wants to develop a "shame-free sexual ethics." The foundation of her ethic is non-controversial: "A healthy sexuality that takes others into account, that asks for maturity and understanding and respects others and their bodies, is a Biblical sexuality."  Sex "requires listening, patience, mutual pleasure, and grace."  And who could possibly disagree that "a healthy sexual relationship is one based on mutual pleasure and mutual enthusiastic consent"?

All of that sounds great, except that for Anderson all of that is true, "whether it happens inside or outside of marriage.  Sex is for couples "married or not, committed for life or not."  Sex brings unity, "but it doesn't require the bond of marriage to do so." And in case you missed it, "Sex need not be exclusive to marriage."  Sure, some might still want to wait until marriage to have sex, and that's fine with her, but "for others, it will mean having a mutually pleasurable and consensual encounter on a first date" or "participating in a 'friends with benefits' relationship wherein everyone understands what the agreement is."  She affirms bisexual, homosexual, and polyamorous relationships, as long as they meet the "mutual pleasure and mutual consent" standard.

Whatever ethic you come up with is fine.  Study the Bible and "make your own decision about what you will give weight and what you will cast aside." Anderson talks about "develop[ing] your own understanding" and "developing our own personal sexual ethics." You must "decide what sex means for you."  And as you develop your ethic, remember that "gender and sexuality are not fixed states.  Rather they are fluid, intermingling identities. . . . Whom we are attracted to has the ability to expand or shift over time." You know, be curious, explore, because "all sexual and gender identities [are] valid."  As you develop your personal sexual ethic, everyone should do so "as they see fit, so long as it doesn't involve hurting other people."

This personal ethic of Anderson's opens the door for virtually any expression of sexuality imaginable.  She does draw the line at sex with minors, as they are incapable for truly consenting.  She doesn't describe specific scenarios, but her "mutual pleasure and consent" standard would allow for multiple partners of either gender, a different partner every day, sex in pairs or groups of any size, sex with people you know and love or with strangers, just let your imagination run wild.  She doesn't address the porn industry or prostitution, but based on the "mutual pleasure and consent" standard, I don't see how she could object to a personal sexual ethic that includes these activities, as long as everyone is a willing participant.

Is that really what Anderson wants as an alternative to purity vows?  Ask yourself, should we be teaching teens that God's ideal is to have sex exclusively with your spouse?  Or should we be teaching them to have sex with whoever, whenever, and however they want, as long as it is mutually pleasurable and consensual?  Yes, of course there have been abuses in the church.  Yes, we should foster an atmosphere of grace rather than condemnation for victims of rape.  Yes, we should first an atmosphere of forgiveness and redemption for those who sin.  Yes, we are all sinners and we recognize that many, many Christians fall into sexual sin of every sort.

In spite of the shortcomings of churches' teachings on sexuality, we have to recognize that God's plan--one man and one woman becoming one flesh in the bond of marriage--is an ideal established by God for our good.  As with all of God's ideal's we fall short, way too often.  And God in his grace will restore joy and wholeness to those who fail (which is all of us).  But Anderson wants to jettison God's plan for whatever she might come up with on her own.

I will end with a song that came to mind while reading Damaged Goods.  This is from the album, "Door Into Summer" by Jacob's Trouble, released in the late 1980s.  I think it fits.

Are you tired of religion that only seems to bring you down?
Cramping your lifestyle like a certain thorny crown?
Are you sick of being told that you can't make it on your own?
If that's your case, I've got a place that you can call a home!
(Chorus:)
It's the Church Of Do What You Want To
The Church Of Do What You Please
The Church Of Do What Feels Good Baby
And Believe What You Want To Believe



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Stealing the Game, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar knows basketball, but does he know story telling?  In Streetball Crew Book 2, Stealing the Game, Abdul-Jabbar, with some help from co-author Raymond Obstfeld, tells a fun story for teens.  The Streetball Crew made their first appearance in Sasquatch in the Paint.  The middle-school basketball buddies now face a new challenge, a club team from the rich part of town.  They are older and bigger, but the Streetball Crew still brings a game.

When Chris's brother Jax returns from law school, Chris knows something's up.  Jax sets up the game with the club team to pay off a debt to their coach.  Chris sets his pal Theo on the case, and when things finally become clear, it's not at all what Chris thought was going on at first.

Stealing the Game portrays the importance of teamwork, believing in your family, and doing the right thing.  I appreciated the character that Chris and his friends showed on and off the court.  It was also nice to see such positive portrayals of their school basketball coach and their principal.  Stealing the Game isn't all about playing basketball, but basketball-loving young readers will want to keep on reading after the games are over.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

How to Be a Husband, by Tim Dowling

Marriage and family life can be inherently funny.  Living with our soul mate can be rewarding, challenging, and entertaining.  Some marriages, like Tim Dowling's, sometimes "subscribe less to the 'soul mates' model and more to a 'cell mates' one."  Dowling tells some of his stories in How to Be a Husband.  He doesn't write this as a marriage manual; in fact, he writes, "if you come across anything that resembles advice in [this book], I would caution against following it too strictly."  Yet, "you cannot be married for twenty years without other people thinking there must be some trick to it."

Dowling, an American journalist, met a British woman when she was visiting mutual friends in New York.  They began a long-distance relationship, and eventually married so they could live together permanently in England, the culmination of which he describes as a "sham marriage we've hastily arranged just so we can stay together forever."  He writes about gender roles, and the unusual ways their marriage sometimes rearranges them.  They have three children together, who seem to have turned out well.  And, as noted, they are still married.  So they must be doing something right.

To paraphrase Bill Cosby, those of you with or without a spouse, you'll understand.  Here is a taste of Dowling's wit and wisdom (I know this is a lot of quoting for a book review, but I can't help sharing):

"Some people possess both a talent for cooking and an ability to derive pleasure from exercising their skills to feed others.  Whenever possible you should try to include such a person in your holiday plans, whether you enjoy that person's company or not."  (Neither Dowling nor his wife possess such abilities.)

One of my favorite sections dwelt on DIY tips.  I could relate to what he said about saving spare parts from a project: "To be honest these pieces of saved junk rarely come in handy, but the bits you throw away are always the ones you'll wish you'd kept."

"It's never too late to apologize.  By which I mean, when it's obviously far too late for saying sorry to do any good at all, you still should."  Amen.

Of course he has a few things to say about sex:  "The basic strategies for maintaining a healthy sex life are not, in themselves, sexy.  It has a lot more to do with emptying the dishwasher without being asked than you think.  I'm sorry about this."

"Waking up your partner for sex is famously not a good idea, although I've always imagined I would be a totally accommodating about it if it ever happened to me."  This made me laugh!  I wish I'd written this line!

"I had always imagined that my children would at some point graduate from being charges to being minions--that I would be able to assign them tiresome chores or dispatch them on small errands in exchange for their upkeep.  It would be like having an army of personal assistants. . . . It turns out that parenting is a lot more like being a personal assistant than having one."  Ah, parenthood!

"The best thing about marriage, at least initially, is that no change is required: someone is willing to marry you as you are, rubbish bits included."

This last line provides a nice theme for How to Be a Husband.  The book is chock full of self-deprecating humor.  Dowling is open and honest about his mistakes and goofs in marriage, career, and life.  And he certainly does not present his wife as a flower of perfection.  She is alternatively irritable, foul-mouthed, critical, and distant.  But under the turmoil and craziness at the Dowling house, I came away with a sense of a committed family, of a married couple who don't look past the "rubbish bits" but embrace them, because they know that it's all a package of this person they love and are committed to.

I thoroughly enjoyed laughing along with Dowling through his 20 years of marriage in 288 pages.  In spite of his disavowals, I may have actually come away with a few things to think about in my own marriage.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Counter Culture, by David Platt

In his best-selling book Radical, David Platt challenged American Christians to become radical followers of Jesus, in other words to actually do those things that Christians are supposed to do.  In his newest book, Counter Culture: A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture in a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Abortion, Persecution, Orphans and Pornography, Platt calls on Christians not to conform to the world's views on all of these issues, but to let their actions conform to the attitudes and teaching of Jesus and the Bible.

In one sense, this book is easy to describe.  Platt is a conservative Southern Baptist pastor.  If you know what conservative Christians in general, and conservative Southern Baptists in particular, believe about all the issues listed in the rather cumbersome subtitle, then you have a pretty good grasp on what Platt believes.

However, Counter Culture is more than a simple "what we believe" pamphlet.  As Platt delves into the scriptural foundation for each of the stances he takes in the book, he gives a very personal spin.  On each issue he tells how he has struggled to follow Christ's example.  Further, he helps the reader by ending each chapter with steps to pray--suggestions for prayer time, to participate--ways the reader can be involved, and to proclaim--scriptures to mediate on regarding the issue of the chapter.

Overall, Platt maintains a very positive tone.  He offers the hope of the gospel for those involved in sexual sin, for those struggling with materialism or poverty, for those in slavery.  The weight of the issues he discusses began to feel very heavy, and our response, inadequate.  But as he reminds us, "God alone is able to bear these global burdens." In his grace, he allows us to participate in his work.

There are a couple of points I thought worth mentioning.  In his section on poverty, Platt states that "One of the primary ways we help the poor is through diligent work."  He honors labor, specifically the use of one's skills and education to earn money one can use to assist the poor.  He acknowledges that some will be called to forgo college or leave professional positions in order to work in direct service to the poor, but that we need people in a variety of professions to develop and sustain the economy and use their job skills in service to God.  I was gratified to see him take this stance.  In my review of Radical, I criticized him for implying that missions and work among the poor are higher callings than so-called secular work.  In Counter Culture, he states the opposite.  Well done.  I'm sure my review at Amazon.com was very influential in his thinking.

Another interesting point Platt makes is some potential inconsistency, especially among younger Christians.  He observes the zeal and activism among young evangelicals on issues such as poverty and slavery, but challenges them not to be silent on other issues like abortion and homosexuality.  In light of the strong connections between sex slavery and pornography, Platt cites studies that indicate up to 90 percent of college males view pornography.  "No matter how many red Xs we write on our hands to end slavery, as long as those same hands are clicking on pornographic websites and scrolling through sexual pictures and videos, we are frauds to the core."  Powerful, convicting words.

Throughout Counter Culture, Platt never fails to keep the focus on Christ and the hope we have in him.  We all have sinned, and are guilty of following culture on some or all of the issues he addresses.  As we live to counter culture, we live to follow Christ.  And as we do so, we recognize that the point is not to transform culture by focusing on these issues, but "by giving our lives to gospel proclamation--to telling others the good news of all God has done in Christ and calling them to follow him.

Here is a cool trailer for the book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klvlzLs-LQw&feature=youtu.be

Also, Platt has a web site associated with the book.  Here he lists additional "participate" resources, as well as a section where readers can share their own stories.
http://www.counterculturebook.com


Thanks to Tyndale and the Tyndale Blog Network for the complimentary review copy!

The Opposite of Spoiled, by Ron Lieber

Nobody wants their kids to be spoiled.  New York Times columnist Ron Lieber wants to help.  The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who are Grounded, Generous, and Smart about Money provides some principles and guidelines for parents to think about as they talk about money with their kids.  And as Lieber says, talking about money is a great place to start.  So many parents keep their kids financially in the dark, either out of a desire to avoid boasting and pride or to protect the kids from financial worries.  But Lieber wants parents to "promise to our kids that we will make them better at money than we are."

Lieber recognizes that there's not a good word for the opposite of spoiled as we use the word to describe spoiled kids.  So he starts by describing spoiled kids.  They have few chores, few rules, doting parents, and lots of material possessions.  As any parent of any socio-economic level will recognize, these traits are not found exclusively among children in wealthy families.  In The Opposite of Spoiled he attempts to describe the "values and virtues and character traits" that "collectively add up to the kind of grounded, decent young adults that every parent hopes to send out into the world."

Of course the quality of being spoiled doesn't have only to do with financial matters, but that's where Lieber keeps his focus.  As the cover illustrates, Lieber is a big fan of the three-jar, save/spend/give plan.  Even at a young age, kids can learn to make choices and think in terms of budgeting.  One principle I especially liked is the Fun Ratio: before we (or the kids) spend money on things we want, we can "estimate the hours of fun per dollar that any Want of theirs might provide."  An expensive electronic toy that a kid only plays with a couple times might deliver very little fun per dollar, while an expensive video game that kids play for hours over many months or years deliver lots of fun per dollar.

Lieber also encourages the promotion of a lifestyle of giving and generosity.  It starts with an awareness of and appreciation for the high level of wealth and privilege enjoyed by almost any American family, when compared to the rest of the world.  More than that, Lieber calls for parents to foster a recognition of needs around them and the potential we have to assist others.

Lieber interviews and tells stories from a variety of families at different levels of wealth and income, but  he definitely leans toward the upper end of the spectrum.  That mild criticism aside, many families will be encouraged to start conversations with their kids and take active steps to change their thinking about money and maybe even shape their character.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Juneteenth for Mazie, by Floyd Cooper

Floyd Cooper's book Juneteenth for Mazie beautifully illustrates and celebrates a great day in American history.  Mazie's a little miffed about her lack of freedom.  "I can't go where I want, have what I want, or do what I want," she complains.  Her daddy tells her that tomorrow they can all celebrate, and talk about the time when Great, Great, Great Grandpa Mose "heard 'no' even more" than Mazie does.

Mazie's daddy tells her the story of Mose, who worked and worked and dreamed of freedom until the
day the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Galveson, Texas.  That June 19 is celebrated every year as Juneteenth.  Mazie's daddy tells her about the joy of freedom, the struggle of the civil rights movement, of forgiveness, achievement, and celebration.

Cooper's illustrations have a dream-like quality, conveying the slaves' dreams of freedom, and the dream-come-true of the end of slavery.  The faces of characters capture the joy and intensity of freedom, determination, and celebration.  The text is rather stark and a bit thin on content, but is probably just about perfect as an introduction to Juneteenth for the very young, pre-reading child.

The children of the slaves, who never had a living memory of slavery, and the children of the civil rights movement, who never knew a world of whites-only water fountains and legally segregated schools, can keep alive the story of freedom and equality by hearing and telling the stories of their grandparents, and their grandparents, and their grandparents.  Juneteenth for Mazie reminds a new generation to remember--and celebrate!


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!