Instead she discovers that Sasha is not as straightforward as she seems, and Reggie, instead of being a troubled teenager, is actually caring in unpredictable ways. When Dom breaks up with her, her father is dismayed, and Monique is desperate to return to how things were.
On one level that is what Monique is keen to do, but it seems that she cannot quite manage.
What her parents don’t know is that Dom has been pressuring her to have sex for some time. Always seen as the perfect gentleman, he is the obvious choice for Monique in so many ways that she has gone along with it. He is seen as the perfect boyfriend, playing in the praise band, the son of a family friend, without his mother far too young, the son that Monique’s father never had and accordingly a favourite. She has had a boyfriend, Dom, for two years. Church girls are celibate.” Monique resents the unfavourable comparisons her own mother draws between them. She says “Sasha Howser embodies everything people assume about me. Sasha, younger than Monique but seemingly fulfilling the role of perfect “church girl”, is held out as a pattern by her mother. Her mother is demanding and keen to stamp out impropriety, whether from her own daughter or Reggie, a boisterous young man with a reputation for dubious behaviour. Monique’s father is the pastor or minister of a lively and enthusiastic evangelical church, which can mean that there is pressure on her to be the perfect Christian daughter. I found it an interesting read, and one I was pleased to have the opportunity to read and review. Set in small town America, the characters do not want for money or material things, but there are other barriers against young women finding their way in the twenty-first century. Some readers may find some of the details a little too explicit, but it has at its heart some of the dilemmas which have faced women for generations. Perhaps I was not the intended audience for this book, but it is a novel with an authentic voice which represents much about a family where secrets and misunderstandings have been destructive. Funny, explicit but also powerful in terms of drawing a realistic portrait of the demands on young women from their peers, from family and other societal pressure, it is a narrative from the point of view of a young woman who feels the pressure to be a model daughter, but also meet the demands of her long term boyfriend. Featuring Monique, who at seventeen years old has a lot to learn about herself and what she actually wants from life, her family with its expectations for her and her relationships, and what happens when she departs from the script, and the power of women to effect change, it represents a steep learning curve. This is a Young Adult and frank book about relationships, family and “Body Positivity”. Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl by Joya Goffney
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