e-Audio, 15:05:00
Narrated by: Caitlin Kinnunen
Release Date: March 4, 2025
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: March 3-4, 2025
Stand-alone
Source: PRH App (I received an e-ALC from the publisher and their app in exchange for a just and honest review. A huge thank you for the free e-ALC. I also received a free ARC from Penguin Teen. This did nothing to influence my review.)
Content Warning: Religious Bigotry, Homophobia, Outing, Abortion (Not on page), Gaslighting, Grief, Pregnancy, Transphobia, Bullying
For Readers Interested In: 2sLGBTQ+, Contemp Romance, Sparkly Covers, Most Anticipated, Realistic Fiction, Religious, Religious Diversity, Stand-alone, YAA wry, heartfelt tale of a teen who’s taking her church camp by storm—one deadly sin at a time.
Riley quietly left church a year ago when she realized there was no place for a bi girl in her congregation. But it wasn’t until the pastor shunned her older sister for getting an abortion that she really wanted to burn it all down.
It’s just her luck, then, that she’s sent to the principal’s office for slapping a girl talking smack about her sister—and in order to avoid suspension, she has to spend spring break at church camp. The only saving grace is that she’ll be there with her best friend, Julia. Even if Julia’s dad is the pastor. And he’s in charge of camp. But Riley won’t let a technicality like “repenting” get in the way of her true mission. Instead of spending the week embracing the seven heavenly virtues, she decides to commit all seven deadly sins. If she can show the other campers that sometimes being a little bad is for the greater good, she could start a righteous revolution! What could possibly go wrong? Aside from falling for the pastor’s daughter . . .
*MY THOUGHTS*
I don’t usually read books with religion, but this one called to me. I have a special place in my heart for teens that need help. I will move everything to help them if I can. And I tried my hardest to do this for the teens in this book. Even when I knew they couldn’t hear me.
My favorite part of this was the main character. I appreciate that she was looking into religion at all the gray areas. I also appreciated that she was so gritty and down for her family. She didn’t allow anyone to mess with them, no matter who they were. I have to say I was impressed. There are so many people (teens and even adults) that would have something like this happen to them and would give up. I DID find it weird that she was more upset about everything than who it happened to, but I just chalked it up to her being the more angry one since she was still younger.
The plot is what sucked me in tho. I was so enthralled with how she was going to challenge the 7 deadly sins and I was also really enthralled with how she was going to survive camp because seriously, all of them were terrible lol I knew where it was going immediately when I read that her best friend’s dad was the pastor, so I was immediately interested in seeing how it was going to go. And then like I kept thinking it was so bad that it could only get better. But no. Things continuously got more and more bad lol That ending?! Lordt I was on pins and needles.
The writing style was also so good. I LOVED that she wrote both sides of the religion and the gray area. Granted it WAS the really extreme views of religion, but I appreciated that she gave both sides. In a teen book this will help them see both sides and can help them start to think for themselves and help them make their own decisions.
The romance was ok. I wish we got to see more of them together, but this was more realistic and I hated it. I legit cried when they were trying to figure out who the one thing belonged to at the end. My heart breaks for these teens that are going through this. But I did like that the author gave us a glimpse of them at the end.
This was so good. There were things that I wished were different, but I think overall it was done really well. It definitely made me want to read her entire backlist. And hopefully they’re all as good as this.
Overall, I give this
