Could You Leave Everything Behind?

Celeste lives in Unity, a community centered around the strict religious ways of the Movement, and one of their chief tenets is polygamy. Celeste’s impending fifteenth birthday means she will soon be assigned a husband, though secretly she harbors doubts. Her “impure thoughts”—simple and recognizable teen lust—are further stoked by her true-believer sister, Nanette, and Taviana, a former teen prostitute taken in by the Movement. The story shuttles between the first-person accounts of the three protagonists, and although their voices are sometimes too similar, their accounts of subservient life are fascinating. When Taviana is kicked out of Unity, the difficulties of adjusting to civilian life are clearly illustrated. Although Hrdlitschka is careful not to condemn, her details are damning—Celeste’s mother, one of her father’s five wives, is dying because her womb can’t handle her seventh straight baby, yet community doctrine prevents a doctor’s interference. Such specifics make this an infuriating book about faith—which is entirely appropriate. Grades 9-12. --Daniel Kraus

ISBN-10: 1551439271

ISBN-13: 978-1551439273

Author: Shelley Hrdlitschka

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Publisher: Orca Book Publishers