GOD SPARE THE GIRLS

A looming wedding, an extramarital affair, and a broken virginity pact: family drama with a born-again twist.

Caroline Nolan can’t wait to escape. It's the summer before her freshman year of college, and she’s excited to leave her life as the daughter of Luke Nolan, head evangelical preacher in Hope, Texas, and start forging her own way. Caroline doesn't want to follow in her mother’s footsteps as the preacher’s perfect wife; nor does she see a place for herself on her older sister Abigail’s path as the preacher’s perfect daughter. But then life as she knows it starts to crumble. On the evening after Abigail’s bridal shower, Caroline has sex with the son of a church elder and removes her purity ring—placed there by her father. She doesn't feel the catastrophic guilt she had expected but instead starts to question who she is: “A good Christian would feel guilty. Caroline felt nothing at all.” Later, Caroline and her family must reckon with a far more disastrous event: Luke confesses to the church elders that he had an affair with Caroline’s fourth grade teacher. With their family life in ruins and their father’s career hanging in the balance, Caroline and Abigail—armed with a resounding feeling of betrayal—leave their parents' home to stay at the ranch left to them by their grandmother. All the while their mother’s confusing words echo in Caroline’s thoughts: “This land hasn’t been kind to the women of our family. It holds a lot of bitterness.” The longer the sisters stay at the ranch, the more uncomfortable truths they uncover and the more they must grapple with their roles in the family and what they want for the future. The highlight of McKinney’s authentic narrative is her treatment of relationships, and Caroline and Abigail’s growing connection as the rest of their world threatens to fall apart is at once engaging, witty, and heartbreaking.

A loss of faith gives way to something much stronger.