It's hard to believe that the first month of the new year is pretty much over! It's a good thing I didn't make a new year's resolution to better keep up with my book posts since I would already be in hole! Though I would not be that far behind, I am currently on my 3rd book of 2009... book #2 was a big one and page-wise, January is at 1,100+ pages with a couple of more days to go, so quite a good reading month!
I wanted to get my new reading year off to a good and quick start, so it wasn't a very difficult decision to go with Tom Perrotta's most recent book, The Abstinence Teacher. This is now my 3rd consecutive year that I have read by something by Perrotta (Little Children in 2007 and Election in 2008) and he now he has definitely become one of my "go to" authors when I am looking for something quick, fun, and entertaining. Perrotta is the master of the suburbia satire, exploring, often comically, the underbelly of life behind the white-picket fences. Although he pre-dates the show, I do compare his style to Desperate Housewives, though give the hit-or-miss storylines at that show I know that is not the biggest or best compliment I could give to Perrotta.
I have been trying to avoid reading too much about a book going into it... and one of the great things about the Kindle (which is how I read this book (only $4.97 vs. the $13.95 trade paperback!) is that you don't have those inside flaps or reviews to potentially spoil things! That said, I did know this book was about a teacher who gets into some trouble with the religious right in her town over something that takes place in her class room. Hopefully, I am not spoiling things too badly when I tell you the title character is Ruth Ramsey, who is a sex ed high school teacher, who during a Q&A with a class sorta let's it slip that some people actually enjoy oral sex. You can guess in these politically-correct/sensitive times this doesn't go over very well with some folks and ultimately Ruth is forced to teach abstinence vs. her knowledge is power, no-shame approach to sex.
So I was prepared for this to be the ongoing story, but not too long the story shifts it's protagonist to Tim Mason, soccer coach to one of Ruth's daughter, a recovering addict (in many ways) and musician who has attempted to right his path through his his new found relationship with the Lord. When Tim innocently leads the soccer team in a post-match prayer of thanks, Ruth goes a tad ballistic and there we have the shift in the story I wasn't anticipating as the story alternates between Ruth's life (past and present) and Tim's struggles to remain devoted and sober. So I admit to being a bit thrown as the title of the book was "The Abstinence Teacher," but a large chunk of it ended up being "The Religious Soccer Coach."
I also was expecting this book to be an indictment on the religious right. Given my past experience with Perrotta, I'd say that we shared a similar political bent... and while there are a lot of satiric jabs at that end of the spectrum (in particular, though she was not her age / appearance / etc, and she was years off from becoming a recognizable figure, I couldn't get the image of Sarah Palin out of my head as the "abstinence expert" - I'll put in an excerpt "after the jump"). But ultimately, I think Perrotta is fairly even-handed as I found myself thinking that Ruth needed to chill out a bit on her thoughts and actions as well. Again, it is a pre-dating the book thing but I think in this age of Obama, I think one thing I got out of the book was a affirmation that we all could use/need to take a deep breath in dealing with our "fundamental differences."
All this said, I think this was my least favorite Perrotta novel. What's that phrase... pizza (or is it sex... or both?!), even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. So, this is more a back-handed compliment to both Election and Little Children. Again, given the title, I found myself a bit thrown so much of the book was Tim's story... and in the longer form (Election is pretty much a novella), I thought Perrotta lost his focus at timse, detouring/trailing off a few times too many for my liking. But again, really small quibble that would definitely not deter me from jumping on the next Perrotta book (or going back to the 1 or 2 of his books I have read).
As I mentioned in my 2008 reading challenge wrap-up post, I am re-shooting for the 12,345 page goal this year that I so narrowly (and quite suprisingly) missed last year. But I am not going to keep track of hit "officially" here and not that would make a whole lot of sense right now. As was the case last year, I am always pretty quick out of the gates - so telling you I am on a 14,000+ pace is neither realistic and/or accurate of what it will ultimately be!
As promised, here ("after the jump") is an excerpt of the book of the character that reminded me of Sarah Palin - again knowing that the 20-something, blond, chaste Joanne Marlowe does not resemble the Alaskan governor:
