Arousing Love: A Teen Novel by M.H. StromMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was actually pleasantly surprised by this book.
Despite the notion that an 18-year-old boy pursues a 15-year-old girl is somewhat frowned upon, the author made it work.
The story centers around Zach, who falls in love with a girl over the summer. She's staying at a camping site with her religious family and they develop a sweet little summer romance. As often happens with teenagers, they do of course test boundaries and while some parents will frown upon the content, I very much appreciated the way it was portrayed.
One of the issues I often have with reading books involving religion is that it almost always come off as preaching to me. This wasn't the case with "Arousing Love". Sure, we did feel the scolding from Joanna's father as he explained his view, but at the same time we also experience how they're willing to give the boy a chance.
I didn't feel like the book was trying to teach me about religion, because if I wanted that, I'd have read something else. But instead, I saw the religious topics as simply being part of the character. As someone who grew up around Jehovah's Witnesses, I could recognize the fact that being religious didn't mean being fanatic.
However, the reason this book didn't get five stars was largely due to the ending. I did wish for them to get a happily ever after, but in a way, I just couldn't feel as connected to the ending as I did with the rest of the book.
I would recommend this as an easy vacation-read about young love.
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