The Abstinence Teacher

Good Book, Let-Down Ending

The book is about a divorced sex-ed teacher who runs up against some evangelical Christians who do not like the way she teaches her class. It's a pitched battle - that she loses. She is forced to teach abstinence.

Meanwhile, her daughter plays on a soccer team coached by one of the evangelicals. A former rock band guy who's a recovering addict. He's married to one of the flock and unhappy. He's fighting to stay sober and wondering whether the "Godly" life is truly for him.

The main characters intersect and, of course, there is a romantic tension between them. It's not acted upon during the course of the book, but it is there.

Overall, I liked the book. I found the ending to be unsatisfying. It wasn't that it left things open. It just seemed like the author got to a point and decided to just stop writing. 20 or so more pages would have not left an impression like he just ran out of gas and left the book on the side of the road as is.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A Breath of Fresh Air

I love Tom Perrotta's books. I read one of his short stories in a compilation of Best Short Stories (2005?) edited by Michael Chabon and knew I wanted to read more. I then read Little Children and this book and was not disappointed. Perrotta's writing is elegant and fluid, easy to read, and hilarious. He writes about ordinary people and his descriptions are spot on. We must be around the same age because I found myself laughing out loud at his very specific dated references. I doubt anyone will understand them twenty years from now but for those of us in their forties, it is perfect. His characters are very likable and I couldn't put the book down. I moved on to Joe College which was equally engaging and clever. The unique aspect of Perrotta's work is that his writing seems effortless, easy, light but is actually very sophisticated and often profound.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Abstinence-Birth Control-Religion

Religion is a challenging subject to tackle with someone who believes as you do but the true challenge is when you tackle it with someone who has no use for it. Ruth Ramsey has no use for religion and becomes upset when the head coach of her daughter¿s soccer team starts to include prayer. Tim Mason, a washed up Grateful Dead lover, alcohol abuser and former drug addict loses his wife and daughter. He¿s converted by charismatic Pastor Dennis and for a while he buys into the religion. The charismatic Pastor Dennis attends a wedding where his wife is a bridesmaid and is seated at a table with men without a date. One of the men is offended by the preacher¿s conversation and goes to the bathroom to escape Pastor Dennis who follows the man into the bathroom. The man beats up Pastor Dennis and the pastor converts him. Later the man realizes that it wasn¿t God who made him want to change as Pastor Dennis had said but something inside him. He leaves the church. Tim marries a woman recommended by Pastor Dennis though he doesn¿t love her but he thought it was the Christian thing to do. As time goes on Tim evaluates his faith and realizes he no longer buys into the religion. Ruth is a Health teacher who teaches sex education. She tells it like it is and is told she has to stop because they¿re going to try a new program called Abstinence. She doesn¿t buy into the program and is told the next year she¿ll teach remedial math. While Tim is trying to come to terms with being a Man of God, he constantly finds himself on Ruth¿s doorstep. The attraction between the two is one they try to ignore.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

great

Another great book from Tom Perrotta. If you like your stories driven by strong characters that seem so real, then this is your book.

100% Effective

THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER is the second book I've read by Perrotta (the first being LITTLE CHILDREN. I like his writing style. If there is a writing style, that is. His writing is just very conversational and easy to read. You don't have to put in a lot of effort; he doesn't try to make things unnecessarily over-intellectual. The novel is about a Health/Sex Ed teacher named Ruth who gets in trouble for saying in class that some people enjoy the oral variety. The school then adopts a curriculum of abstinence that she -- obviously -- doesn't agree with. One of the best chapters of the book has to be when Ruth is forced to attend a workshop with other "bad" teachers throughout the school district. It's very well written and humorous. I could have listened to this group discuss their experiences for an entire novel in itself. After reading about a third of the way into the novel about Ruth, it then abruptly switches gears. The main character now becomes Tim, and we see things through his eyes. It was a bit jarring at first, but I understand why Perrotta did this. He wanted to show readers two sides of the story. Tim is a Jesus-lover. But he wasn't always. In his youth, he was a Deadhead. He smoked, he drank, he did drugs, he partied, etc. He was a terrible husband and an even worse father. Then he found God, became a born-again Christian, and turned his life around. After losing his wife and most of his rights to his daughter. Tim isn't an extreme Bible-thumper, though. He's cool with homosexuality and the like. After a long section about Tim (the lesser interesting but possibly more in-depth character), the novel then alternates between Tim's and Ruth's point of view. Their lives intersect when Tim, a soccer coach, has his team pray at a game. Ruth's daughter is on the team and she's not happy with Tim. All in all, THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER was an enjoyable (and easy) read, and I was pleased that Perrotta showed both positive and negative aspects to both Ruth's and Tim's personalities so the subject matter would appeal to a broader audience and not take sides. My only disappointment would be that not much happened in the novel. It was basically "a day in the life." Or, in this case, "a few months in the lives of Ruth and Tim."

He's created some great characters again.

In his usual style, Tom Perrotta combines satire with exactly the right amount of compassion to serve up a delightful book.
This one is about a woman who teaches health and sex education. Her classes are geared to telling the students the truth and to provide them with advice about protecting themselves. She is divorced and has a daughter.
Someone takes offense at something she says regarding masturbation and she is instructed by the administration to attend a workshop in which she will learn to teach abstinence as the only method of protection. She knows this will lead to failure, the human condition being what it is.
Meanwhile, a young divorced man who has had problems with addiction is welcomed into the fold of an evangelical church known simply as Tabernacle. The pastor manages to worm his way into all aspects of the man's life to help him be all that he can be for God.
This young man has a daughter who plays soccer and he becomes the coach for her team. After an especially grueling game, the coaches join hands with the girls and have a prayer out on the field. The Abstinence teacher goes ballistic and jerks her daughter off the field, telling the coach that it is her right and responsibility to structure her child's religious training (or lack of) and certainly not his.
There are other interesting characters including a gay couple, one of whom is also a teacher.
In my opinion, the lesson to take away from this is that all things should be done in moderation and common sense, including religion.
I loved this book!

I can't believe I lost minutes of life reading this junk!

Wow, this book had to be one of the worst books I have read in a long time. It's like the author reveled in human weakness and wanted people to celebrate it. It just made me be ashamed to be part of a weak minded race. Seriously?! Nothing happened. It was just a series of regualer everyday lives and reactions from a "liberal" sex ed teacher and a "fanatical" religous person. The sex ed teacher was not liberal, she just thought people should do whatever popped into their head, it was more about lack of control than mores or morals. And the book make God seem like rules were too hard to follow. I think it was an insult on both sides. Waste of time.

I agree with UGH!!!

I couldn't wait to finish this book. I skimmed MOST of it ...then threw it in the recycling. That is something I NEVER do. I usually pass my books on to friends. I would be embarrassed if any of my friends knew I read this.
Boring, trite & with a lousy ending.

Great Book

I really enjoy Tom Perotta's books (Little Children, Election) and The Abstinence Teacher was no exception. He did a great job of portraying a born again Christian and a liberal sex education teacher. He did portray both characters equally and without judgment. I would recommend this to most people (even evangelicals). Even though I am not a religious person, Perotta's story made me realize the good that can come out of organized religion but he did emphasize the bad. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.

My thoughts for "The Abstinence Teacher"

I like story line, but my problem was the ending of the book. The author, in my opinion, did a very good job with the characters. I really enjoyed Ruth and Tim. I just think he lost his focus towards the end, to me it was as if he was rushed to finish and that was his final product. In other words it climaxed but it tumbled on its way down.

Low morals and disappointing ending

This book's main character is a sex-ed highschool teacher recently divorced with two children. Her best friends are a gay couple and she thinks all the women teachers are stuffy and boring. She has two daughters whom she shows very little guidance in morals or values as she is too busy figuring out her own lovelife. She meets a born-again Christian man who you hope might inspire her to a higher level of living. But nope, instead she manages to drag him down to her level. That is the happy ending. Sorry if I blew the ending but I'm trying to save other readers from wasting time reading this pointless book!

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I thought it was good...

I disagree with some other reviewers who felt it was weak and the author was biased. I feel like the author just told the story of the characters. To me the actions of the characters, while flawed, matched who they were. I enjoyed it, but hesitate to who I recommend it to. Any strong conservative or very religious person might not enjoy the book. You have to read it with an open mind. I saw it as a very real struggle of a born-again Christian, and the daily struggles of a woman living a life without God.

Got my interest up front. Author's bias came out later. Weak ending. Loser characters.

A friend lent me the audiobook. I was intrigued by the title, unfamiliar with the author. It kept my interest and listened to the whole thing in two days. Though both sides of the secular/libertine/atheist vs. religious/chaste debate were presented, they most certainly weren't presented equally or fairly. The author has an obvious bias toward the promiscuous. It seems every character has a checkered past which he seems to turn into hypocracy on the part of the born-again folks. As the story progresses all of the characters with the exception of the children become less and less likeable. In the end, the two main characters hook up, I think, but that is left uncertain even though it was broadcast from the very begining. What is certain is that they were two losers. The ending would have been better if the story lasted a few more hours.

Wouldn't read this again...

I have to admit that the writing style was interesting enough to keep me reading, and I was intrigued enough to want to find out what happened at the end. The problem was, the only thing that DID happen was that I realized how much I hated every single character in the book. Shallow and disturbing. I really prefer a well-researched work of historical fiction to this contemporary fluff.

Shallow, could have been so much more...

I really, really wanted to give this book four stars, but the more I thought about it, Perotta just didn't pull it off here. ''The Abstinence Teacher'' wants to Say Something about the climate of willful ignorance in America -- as though telling teens ''Sex is bad, mmmmkay?'' will magically make them stop experimenting and halt the spread of teen pregnancies and STDs -- but never really does more than scrape the surface. There's an intriguing cast of characters on hand, but Perotta doesn't utilize them to their full potential. Worst of all, the inevitable conclusion -- which he even foreshadows when two characters discuss the 'opposites attract' plotline of most romantic comedies -- seems rushed and forced. Worth borrowing from the library or buying when this hits the bargain section, but not among Perotta's best.

Best book I've read in awhile

I loved this book, finishing it in two days! Didn't expect to like it at all. But Perrotta was so even-handed in his exploration of the topic, I agree with the reviewer who said it was hard to tell what side he was favoring. In my opinion, the best thing about the book were the characters and his ability to get the reader inside the heads of multiple characters. I didn't really see it as a humorous book except for the portrayal of a few characters 'in particular the abstinence proponent Joann Marlowe, who is just like a woman in my community with a similar position' and of the Faith Keepers 'Promise Keepers' rally. I now look forward to reading more of Perrotta!

not his best

I looked forward to this, and for a while it was great, but it seems like Perrotta hit a wall a little more than halfway through and didn't know how to pull it together. I really didn't see what the attraction was between Tim and Ruth-there was very little interaction between them-and I was really disappointed in the ending, it just hangs-I said, 'that's it??'. Hope the next book isn't so rushed.

Ugh.

This book was highly disappointing. It was not funny in the least, I did not like the characters, the writing was sketchy and underdeveloped. The worst $20 ever spent.

Read Between the Lines

I can not definitively say what the author was intending, but as I read between the lines, I got the sense one of the messages was about others (The Christian Church)bestowing their beliefs on the general public (schools,childrens sporting events...) The book seemed to be written tongue in cheek. Interesting how the second main character came around at the end seeing the Tabernacle Church as others regarded it. I think leaving the book hanging at the end was genius. It is implied that Tim stays?? Ruth tells Tim can stay for as long as he wishes ( why not? Ruth is lonely and can talk to him easily). It would have been to easy to give a happy ending with all the details. As readers we have to remember that the publishers have as much say in the ending as the author did. I applaud both for making us think or believe in our own minds what happens at the end.

A reviewer

The Abstinence Teacher blows the lid off the melting pot! Read everything he's written and you'll find yourself re-reading paragraphs to enjoy yet again his clever turn of phrase. He is chameleon-like in his ability to give a voice to all his characters. Sometimes I think he must have been listening in on a conversation I had with a friend over lunch. I can't wait to see what he'll be up to next.