Terra Elan McVoy

Fifteen-year-old Tabitha and her four best friends all wear purity rings to symbolize their pledge to remain virgins until they marry, but when one admits that she has broken the pledge each girl must reexamine her faith, friendships, and what it means to be pure.

Pure

Sarah Sammis

Pure by Terra Elan McVoy was one of two young adult books I had to read for the Nerds Heart YA brackets. It's not a book I would ever chose for myself. The idea of purity rings makes my skin crawl. And here's a book with five friends who have been wearing them since they were twelve. They're now fifteen, boy crazy and one of them has changed her mind. Tabitha, the narrator of this novel does her best to hold the friendship together while the most religious harpy in the group wants to cast her out of their close knit circle.

Despite my own personal squicky feelings about girls being taught to preserve their "purity" for marriage instead of teaching teens of both genders how to protect themselves and take charge of their bodies while staying healthy, Pure was better than I feared. It's not as preachy as I feared it would be and it does try to cover different problems teenage girls might face, especially those in a clique.

Tabitha's an interesting character with a strong voice. I think some of her potential though is wasted. The way the book is set up with Tabitha getting interested in a boy and kissing him outside of a youth group gathering, I expected her to be the one to start a sexual relationship. She wasn't but she would have been a far more interesting character as the outsider in the clique.

Pure

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