The Raging Quiet

By Sherryl Jordan

First let me say, I could not quit reading this book. The story is compelling, the writing excellent, but it's the last thing I'd want to put in my 13-year-old daughter's hands. It is a beautiful, tender story about a 16-year-old girl named Marnie who becomes a bride to a much older man, a vow made just to save her family from eviction and starvation. As it turns out, her much older husband is a bit of a brute. Marnie is quickly widowed, however, and follows her typical strong-willed instincts when they tell her to befriend the village madman. She learns that he is not a madman at all, but simply deaf. She develops a sign language for him, they communicate, and the rest is like a fairy tale love story.

If that were all, I would love for my 13-year-old daughter to read the book, because the story line and many of the book's lessons have great merit. But that is not all. There is some sensuous language and some semi-explicit details about Marnie's two nights with her much older husband. I like that Marnie seems chaste at this point and I tried to weigh this "love scene" against all of the other merits of the book. But then, as the book progresses, I find Marnie to be a bit too strong-willed. Her living arrangement with Raver, the town "madman" and her defiance towards her mother really bothered me. From here, we have Marnie drinking, dancing half naked in the moonlight, and then, as I read it (somewhat between the lines), Marnie seems to consummate her relationship with Raver, or at least close to it. Then they get married. This does not all happen in one night, by the way, but it seemed to me that much of the book revolved around this type of theme.

I won't spoil the book with any more details. An aspiring writer myself, I would be hard-pressed to put the book on a "do not read" list because it is so beautifully written, but I must caution strongly that there was too much physical passion in the book for my liking in regards to calling this a "teen read." In my opinion, if this book is for teens, as many sites and reviews imply, then it is for older teens.

This book gets a "proceed with caution" rating from The Healthy Homeschool.