Wednesday, October 13, 2010

First Love by Michelle Sutton ~ 4 stars

First Love
Michelle Sutton
Tombstone Treasures series #2
Desert Breeze Publishing
About the book:
Josiah and Tara had enjoyed acting in their high school plays. They had also been each others' first lover... in fact; most of the time they'd spent together had been in Tara's bed. When Josiah became a Christian, he left Tara to go to college and didn't look back.

Four years later, Josiah is back in town when his father has a near-fatal heart attack. When they meet up again they realize how much their separation had hurt each of them. But now Tara is a Christian and is trying to live a life that is pleasing to God.

Josiah wants Tara back, but neither knows how to relate to each other without the physical intimacy they once shared. They are determined to do things right this time, but find it more challenging than they'd anticipated.

My review:
*Since my review copy was an ARC, some of the things mentioned in my review might not be the same as in the final version.*

First, I’m just going to say that I loved the subject that Michelle dealt with in this book. It is about two teens who had sex outside of marriage, then broke up. Later, they meet and are both Christians who want to renew their relationship, except this time do everything God’s way. I thought Michelle did a great job of portraying their struggle to stay pure and honor God with their relationship. To me, reading the book was kind of like hearing about some friends of mine who kept messing up, and I felt like I wanted to help them understand it and stay strong but couldn’t.

Some of the dialogue could be changed to follow more logical patterns. (Such as characters saying seemingly random things to make the dialogue go in a new direction.) But, that was pretty minor and could easily be fixed. For the most part, the character’s emotions were realistically done and there were only a few places where I felt like an emotion would come up that wasn’t warranted by the situation. However, that was pretty minor as well.

All in all, I really liked this book and its message about purity in relationships. It gave me some stuff to think about in terms of relationships and boundaries when dating. (Just a warning though, due to the subject matter and writing style of the author, there are some steamy scenes between the characters. I would not recommend this to younger teens.)

9 comments:

Joan said...

We need more books that address issues facing young people. It can only help. Thank you for your review, Carman.

Edgy Inspirational Author said...

Thanks for the review. :) You are getting to be such a good reviewer!

Renee said...

I appreciate both your websites, Carman! Nice review!

Charlotte Kay said...

I enjoyed this review.
This book does address the issues that our "Christian" teens are facing most parents would not admit. I believe this book could help many teens/young adults facing the same situations.
charsaltz(at)yahoo(dot)com

Unknown said...

Carmen, I appreciate your point of view of Michllle's story. You show maturity and good sense in your remarks and that does my heart good. Most people are aware and very concerned about the morals of the young these days as in all days. I see that as Michelle's good purpose for the unusual treatment of such issues in Christian literature. Keep up your good work.

Blessings,
Barb Shelton
barbjan10 at tx dot rr dot com

Casey said...

Great review, very well rounded, thanks for sharing your opinion!

Carman said...

mr lonely~ Thank you! i checked out your blog. I really admire your dedication!

Joan~ Oh, I totally agree!

Michelle~ Thank you! I really appreciate your comment. I usually feel like my reviews aren't very good. :/

Carman said...

Renee~ Thank you! That makes my day. :D

Charlotte~ Oh, yeah! I agree with you there. Sometimes when I think about the way people are... ugh. It drives me nuts! I need to be praying more and being a light unto the darkness. Thanks for commenting!

Barb~ Thank you so much! That is so sweet. :) I'm with you there! I really appreciate what Michelle is doing!

Carman said...

Casey~ Thank you! :D