Converting Kate (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Converting Kate Deborah Stevenson Weinheimer, Beckie Converting Kate. Viking, 2007 [320p] ISBN 0-670-06152-2$16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10 "You were born into the fullness of the gospel," Kate's mother reminds her, trying to keep her daughter in the fold of the Church of the Holy Divine. Now that Kate's a teenager, though, she's rejecting her mother's faith, reveling in her first taste of school attendance (home-schooling is de rigueur for young Church members prior to high school), and deeply missing her father, who split from Kate's mother on religious grounds and who died suddenly last year. While the explorations of belief sometimes lack depth (there's little questioning of the judgmentality of Kate's politically dogmatic new friend, and Kate's as insistent as her mother but about different customs), this is really a story of adolescent individuation more than religious conversion. The religious component to the plot allows that developmental drama to play out with particular resonance, since the elements of parental restriction and Kate's coming into her own are writ larger than in the usual treatment of independence; there's also a subplot wherein Kate makes her own stand on ethics and faith when a popular local pastor loses his job as a result of homophobia. The book also makes clear that Kate is demonizing her mother and sanctifying her father when the truth is somewhat more complicated, even as Kate's struggles against her mother's strictures are legitimate and sympathetically depicted. Religion and religious differences are serious issues to many young adults, and even those breaking from their parents on more secular fronts will sympathize with Kate's struggle. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois