TRY GOD

There are two special features at the home for young women in trouble (drugs, prostitution, alcoholism, theft, etc.) about which this book is written. First is a 90% cure rate for those who stay the course of many months--a short chapter goes to an ACLU probe of this statistic. Second is the requirement of all entrants that after six weeks they decide whether or not they ""want to give their lives to Christ."" If not, they have to leave. Laura Hobe provides 25 brisk vignettes of a popular-magazine sort in which failures are duly recorded and money matters are dealt with (Tiffany president Walter Hoving is the attractive hero here). Written within the conventions of the evangelical milieu, the book does put across the heartening message that Addiction and Company are not incurables at whose hands we must accept defeat, nor are the browbeating humiliations of Synanon, Daytop, et al. the only route to cure.