Book Review- Keep Sweet by Michele Dominguez Greene

So, in my efforts to get back on track, I finished 3 books so far today.  And it's only 6:30 PM.  I could possibly squeeze in one more!  But I also have Lost and Glee, so probably not.

Anyway, I finished up Keep Sweet this morning and while writing up my BFYA notes, realized that I really liked it.  This should not be a huge surprise, since the FLDS church has been a subject of interest for me for awhile.  I read Carol Lynch Williams' The Chosen One last year and also Shelley Hrdlitschka's Sister Wife, and I'm a devoted fan of Big Love.  Needless to say, I found it slightly, umm... awesome that Michele Dominguez Greene has acted in Big Love.

Keep Sweet is a slight novel (not much more than 200 pages) that follows Alva Jane, a member of the FLDS community called Pineridge.  Alva Jane grew up not questioning FLDS, but then again, it was her entire world, from her schooling to her parenting, her friends, everything.  Yet at the same time, she had to know, somewhere in her, that it was not okay to pick out her own future husband: her secret boyfriend Joseph John.  That's the prophet's job.  The thing is, keeping sweet, well, it's the secret to everything in Pineridge.  It's the only way to keep everything going as it always has been.  The women must "keep sweet," they must marry the men the prophet has picked out for them, they must produce many children, and they must start doing this as soon as they begin menstruating.

Somehow, Alva Jane seemed to think she could circumvent their way of life, that she could leave with Joseph John when he went off to college at BYU.

Alva Jane was wrong.

What follows is the horrifying but trying story of how she attempts to get out.  It seems that everything -- and I do mean everything-- is standing in the way of her making a break for it.  What seems to work so well for young men to break out of the community (or more often, get kicked out) only leads to more abuse.  As troubling as this story is, it's even more troubling to think that this is still something going on in the United States.  That there are girls like Alva Jane, who know nothing more, who have never been educated about their choices, who have never heard of "age of consent" laws, who must, well, "keep sweet."

This is a powerful story that will easily appeal to people (like myself) who are interested in these seemingly crazy subcultures that I have trouble believing still exist in the United States, but also, for anyone interested in a story of a teen trying so hard to beat the odds.

Also read today: Broken Memory by Elisabeth Combres (Groundwood Books) and Sweet, Hereafter by Angela Johnson (S&S)