I should start by saying that I saw part of the TV show the BBC made out of this when I was 16/17. At the time I was still very much a christian and terrified by the prospect that in all likelihood I was quite gay. This however did not stop me from getting crushes on a lot of girls, including Sammy who used to run the Christian Union with me, and her sister. One evening I was over at Sammy's sitting downstairs watching TV with her sister, who was watching Oranges are not the only fruit. So I was very pleased to see there was a cute girl called Melanie on the tele, who also had long brown curly hair, (though at the time mine was dyed red) and who also went to prayer meetings with her best friend. Imagine my confusion when they started to get naked! Needless to say I tried to sneak and watch the rest of the series but was TERRIFIED my mum would catch me and start asking questions.
Eventually I was able to put all this behind me and always thought I should read the book, but given how traumatic I view most of growing up I put it off for ages. But I started to read it just before bed on Tuesday night and finished it yesterday. It was good fun, and not traumatic. I was not expecting it to be so light-hearted and enjoyable. In a way it was great to see the events that I found so troubling to be portrayed as more light-hearted.
Now as it's a book about a girl growing upon in an evangelical household who’s secretly gay, you'd expect there to be a lot of coincidences, but there were also a lot of unnecessary ones that amused me greatly. The only book her mother liked, besides the bible was also Jane Eyre, she had a female friend she wouldn't mention, their was a boyfriend in the past she wouldn't talk about but made her think men were only after one thing and so on.
It also reminded me that not everything about my religious upbringing was bad; there was also Fuzzy Felt and Scripture Union books. Of course
silkyraven mentioned that Fuzzy Felt was not intrinsically religious, apparently her sets had cars! Whereas I'm sure I remembered ours having Biblical themes! In a way the mother character was a lot more like my grandmother than my mother, and as such I really think my dad should read it.
There were also bits I found that didn't match with my experiences and so left me feeling a bit puzzled. I was quite surprised by how quickly the girls fell into a sexual relationship, (wish that had happened to me!) and that they didn't realise this was the "sexual perversion" everyone was always going on about. Perhaps because it was set earlier they were more sheltered, but in the churches I went to, and the camps we went to, it was always MOST explicit that any kind of same sex relationship was the work of Demons and Evil!
It was different, and also a lovely relief, to see that there were other lesbians in the town, and even in the church, and that most people viewed her mother as being slightly nuts. (Something that never occurred to me growing up).
I was also surprised by the quietness of the end. But I did like it a great deal, I'm not sure if I'll read more by the same author or not. But I would definitely recommend it.