So the premise is that Joanna Gordon is out and proud and has the full support of her radio evangelist dad. That is, until they move to rural Georgia with Joanna's new stepmum, where it's a bit more 'Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve'. So her dad asks her to keep quiet about being gay for the year she will be living there so as not to upset the locals. Whichis fine, until Joanna meets Mary Carlson and totally falls for her.
So one of the things I really liked was how Joanna does an amazing balancing act between her faith and her sexuality. Basically, her view of god is of a benign being who is happy with us just the way we are and she sees the scriptures as open for interpretation. This is really inspiring because so many churches alienate people in this regard (*squints eyes at Church of England*).
I loved Joanna - she was so sweet and develops so much over the course of the book. And the relationship between her and Mary Carlson was gorgeous (and hot).
There were some really great secondary characters in this book - all of them were fleshed out well in terms of personality and they all had actual story arcs. Another balancing act was between Joanna's life in Rome and her old life in Atlanta, particularly with her best friend.
Ok, you know there's a 'but' coming ...
The issue I had was with the promises that the whole book was based on. Don't get me wrong - it didn't wreck the book or anything, but it was a bit of a hurdle for me to get over. I honestly had no idea why she didn't just tell Mary Carlson that her daed had asked her to lie low for a year. What was the worst she could say? It couldn't have been worse than how she would have reacted to being lied to.
Overall this was a really good book andI'd definitely recommend it. What I wouldn't recommend is lying to your crush like Joanna did.
4 stars