Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #787211 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Like yin and yang, zealotry and doubt animate this intriguing debut by self-proclaimed "recovering born-again Christian" Kerney, featuring 14-year-old Melanie , a Pentecostal Revivalist (which, according to Mel, "means a lot of jumping up and down, speaking in tongues, and falling over, in that order") who wants to be a "Warrior for Christ"—but who also wants to attend academic summer camp. But the camp's required reading includes the verboten On the Origin of Species, and Mel, who is a Bible trivia quiz-kid champ, decides to read Darwin in order to disprove him. Alternately precocious and naïve (her discussion of Darwin is deep, yet her world is rocked by the revelation that her parents engaged in premarital sex), Mel is a terrific character: curious, smart and funny. The supporting cast—Mel's obsessive-compulsive, demon-seeing mother; her sexy pastor; and her occasionally repentant older sister who moves back into the house with her out-of-wedlock daughter to escape an abusive boyfriend—is less wonderful. And in the final third, when the family takes a trip to the underground caves of Kentucky and Mel seeks the scientific evidence for her Darwinian investigation, the story advances entirely inside Mel's head. A dark, fantastic finale earns some redemption. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—When the 14-year-old born-again narrator of this book was a baby, her pastor prophesied that she was destined to do great works for God. Now that Melanie is older, those "great works" appear to be discovering the truth about this pastor, her family, and herself. Melanie looks at her world and sees that there is something wrong with the picture. Her unmarried teen sister has a baby, her brother listens to devil music, and their mother sees demons walking through the house in the night. Melanie tries to decipher the signs God is sending her. She decides that disproving Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is her duty, and that this will help her save her best friend and then the rest of the world. As Melanie examines Darwin's work, however, she also traces the origin and evolution of her family and learns why her mother obsessively cleans and that her father is not the saint she thinks he is. Melanie finds herself moving away from what her pastor and her parents believe. Readers will appreciate how difficult it is for the protagonist to be understood, and to understand. This is a sympathetic story about the search for true faith in the modern world.—Will Marston, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Spiritual questioning is a commonplace theme in fiction; in this debut by a "recovering born-again Christian," it's less a subtle undercurrent than a driving purpose. So strong is the Pentecostal faith of 14-year-old Melanie that she justifies her secret reading of Origin of the Species on a know-thy-enemy rationale: "I could slay Darwin with scripture." But as she works her way through the contraband volume, she begins to inwardly nurse shaken convictions--destabilized as much by evolutionary theory as by family revelations--while outwardly playing Warrior for God with zeal redoubled. Journal entries that show Melanie's engagement with evolutionary theory alternate with self--flagellating episodes, a pattern that comes to seem repetitive, and some plot elements feel like metaphorical set pieces (as when she loses herself in fossil-studded caverns on a family vacation only to emerge, like Plato's cave dwellers, blinking and transformed). The novel's most memorable moments will best resonate with readers who have experienced their own crises of faith, although its timely, tragicomic treatment of the Darwinian debate should draw readers both with and without Bible thumping in their backgrounds. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

New York Times Book Review
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/books/review/Winter.t.html?_r=1&n=Top/Features/Books/Book%20Reviews&oref=slogin

BORN AGAIN. By Kelly Kerney. (Harvest/Harcourt, paper, $14.) The tale of a young Pentecostal's test of faith, Kerney's debut novel has guts and strength, even as it pivots on its narrator's uncertainty. For a summer academic camp, teenage Melanie is assigned Darwin's "Origin of Species," which tops her church's list of blasphemous books. But Melanie's curiosity and intelligence flourish despite her embrace of a religion Kerney depicts as repressive and censorious. Melanie hides the Darwin book and responds to it with surreptitious journal entries. Her older siblings don't share her religious scruples; her sister has a daughter and is involved with an abusive lout, and her brother lives in the basement, working at a local factory and continually looking to escape. Her parents, born again after unholy pasts (her father drank and smoked pot, her mother was pregnant before marriage), lash out at her slightest misstep with frightening rage. Though likable and forthright, Melanie, too, is prone to occasional violent outbursts, which unsettle her family and community and finally lead to a sexually charged exorcism by her local pastor, who "leaned into me with his weight to keep me still." Ultimately, reading Darwin teaches Melanie that just as animals change over generations to survive, she too must adapt to survive her provincial Indiana town. Though it would be easy to clobber readers with such an obvious message, Kerney executes it subtly and skillfully.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
Starting this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. It deals with religion, so I thought it might be preachy. It talks about Darwin, so I was expecting some strong opinions on the subject--everyone has them. BORN AGAIN is Kelly Kerney's first novel, so I had no expectations as to the writing. In the quote on the back cover, Mel (the main character) talks about using the Bible to prove Darwin wrong. I, personally, am not a religious person and believe Darwin had the right idea, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to enjoy this book.

Wow, was I ever wrong. This book deals wonderfully with the admittedly heavy topics of both Darwinian science and religion (Mel belongs to an Evangelical Pentecostal family), without being at all preachy. Kerney isn't trying to convince the reader of anything; she is only showing one girl's search for the truth, and in that she raises some thought-provoking questions about science, religion, and life.

When the novel begins, Mel is an enthusiastic, religious, and smart teenager. She not only wants to do what's right in her own life, she wants to save everyone else, too. She believes every word from Pastor Lyle's mouth as if it came from God himself (which she believes it does). She would never dream of going against what the church and her parents teach her...Right?

When Mel receives a scholarship to academic summer camp, with that comes a reading list. She isn't sure that Pastor Lyle would approve of some of the books on it, like Wuthering Heights (Bantam Classics), but they're not on the "blasphemy list," so she reads most of the books.

And then she comes to Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. She knows that her family and church would certainly not approve of her reading this. Secretly, she borrows a copy from her best friend, Beth, and starts to read. At first, Mel is determined to use the Bible to prove Darwin wrong. She's sure it can be done.

However, as she reads, what Darwin says begins to make sense. This, coupled with some discoveries about the past of her own family, has her doubting some of what she's been told. If what her parents have told her about their own lives is a lie, then who knows what else is a lie? Mel also finds that Darwin and God don't have to be mutually exclusive. This is an idea that has never occurred to her; this is not what she has been taught. Mel's beliefs are being challenged, and now she has to figure out exactly what she believes before she can defend or disprove anything.

BORN AGAIN is a fascinating and brilliantly written look inside the Christian fundamentalism that is so prevalent in America today. It is a thought-provoking story about one girl, but it addresses so much more than just what Mel is dealing with. The front cover blurb on the book says that BORN AGAIN is "enough to make an atheist pray--that this is not America's future," speaking of the Christian fundamentalism addressed in the book. It's true; these people are so sure of their beliefs and so extreme that it is a little scary at times. As Christian fundamentalism seems to become ever more popular in America, this book is a must-read.

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

Thoughtful examination of faith, doubt, and religion
It would be easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to this book and assume it's anti-Christian, but what makes this book great is how it examines a young girl's thoughtful evaluation of her beliefs, which is in no way the same as disregarding them. I am not religious myself, but this book made me have a greater sympathy with those who are and who approach their beliefs in an intelligent way.