Catholic Reluctantly

No, not me- this book.

You really should order it here. You will not be sorry.

First let me say that this book review is so long overdue that I'm feeling a lot of pressure to make it my best book review ever which almost guarantees it will not be very good at all. So I appreciate your forbearance.

When I first found out about the book reviewer program with the Catholic Company I was excited about the chance to read new Catholic books and then write about them.

This is a great book. The characters in it are familiar because we all know people like them and for those of us who remember the difficult teenage years, we sympathize with the struggles of these young Catholics. The intention of these books is to acknowledge a Catholic culture that the past two generations of Americans are trying to re-capture. A culture where big families of modest means know how to have fun and who are always having so much fun they are the secret envy of every neighborhood.

There is action, mystery, drama and suspense in this book and I understand it is to be the first of many volumes. It was one of those books that you had to read through in a few days because you just wanted to know what happens next.

The main characters Brian Burke, George Peterson, Allie and Celia are likeable, real and heroes in the oldest literary sense of the word. They are characters trying to overcome what is bad and seize the good. I understand from the author that Brian is also a Traditional Catholic. So, what's better than that? Modern Traditional Catholicism!

Anyway, the book is aimed at a teenage audience but like other books in this genre I enjoyed reading them just as much as my daughters did. This book does not shy away from real issues. There are no pollyannas here.

The characters are so real that you want to reach out and text them. Or IM them. They are people you would like to have as friends. They are people we would like our teenagers to be and maybe people that we wish we had been.