Benediction
Diane Salvatore
Grace looks up to the swaggering, self-assured Linda Amato, star center of the champion basketball team. Then she accidentally discovers the truth about Linda
When Grace meets the rebellious, sensuous Meg, her entire life becomes a cauldron of powerful emotion and chaotic desire. To be close to her, Grace defies her mother and risks her friendship with Anne. Glen makes new demands and Sister Mary Alice issues a troubling moral challenge.
And Meg what is Grace to make of Meg’s ardent yet contradictory behavior? Can the intimidating, intriguing Linda Amato help to lead Grace out of this morass?
—
From Publishers Weekly
Teens and preteens who are confused about their sexuality may derive comfort from the exploits of this first novel’s protagonists, but adults will wince as they stumble on inept prose, particularly the infelicitous metaphors (‘Her stomach was churning like a washing machine in the heavy-load cycle’). At a retreat sponsored by her Catholic girls’ high school, Grace, a sophomore, is perturbed when she eavesdrops on what is obviously a lesbian lovers’ quarrel between the school’s most popular seniors. She becomes agitated, too, when her best friend, Anne, confides that she is planning on losing her virginity with a boyfriend. Put off by her own boyfriend Glen’s ‘hormonal outbursts,’ Grace guiltily discovers that it’s ‘amazingly terrific’ to kiss Meg, a classmate for whom molestation is an ingredient of family life, and the pair embarks on a sexual relationship. Grace clashes with her parents and the Church; bitterly learns that some gays will ‘do anything to pass as straight’; and is gradually politicized (a lesbian mentor tells her, ‘The kind of prejudice and discrimination you’ll face as a gay person, Grace, is totally different from the kind any other minority faces. People can insult you to your face because your difference doesn’t show. That’s either a blessing or a curse. You’ll have to decide which’). Salvatore is a senior editor at Redbook magazine.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In this spare, explicit story of the awakening of lesbian love, Meg and Grace, classmates in an exclusive New York Catholic school, are drawn to each other despite their very different family backgrounds. As they explore their feelings and bodies with increased intensity, they become isolated from friends, teachers, and families. Their parents are angry and confused, and their priest is little help. They fantasize about a life together, where their partnership will be accepted. Then, suddenly, Meg leaves Grace to marry Danny, a boy from her old neighborhood. Grace is left in emotional tatters as the story reaches its unsatisfying end. A slender plot and characters who, apart from Meg and Grace, are rather fuzzy make this more an emotional snapshot than a novel.
– Susan Clifford, Hughes Aircraft Co. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Details
| ISBN | 1931513430 |
| Genre | Romance |
| Publication Date | Oct-03 |
| Publisher | Bella Books |
| Format | Trade Paperback |
| No. of Pages | 272 |
| Notes | |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| BookID | 984 |
