This is a recent review of PROM on Amazon:
“I found this book to be MORALLY bankrupt! SHOCKING!!, June 20, 2006
Reviewer: Mothers4Morals “Mothers4Morals” (Cincinnati,Ohio) – See all my reviews
This book promotes everything that parents and teachers DO NOT want their teenagers to do!! The “heroine” of the novel disputes authority, sleeps with her boyfriend, gets drunk, stays out late on a school nights wandering around downtown, and then passes out condoms to everyone at her high school prom.
The cover photo would have one believe it is a sweet, off-beat prom story when it really isn’t. This is NOT a book I’d recommend for anyone; let alone middle school students. Some examples of this books disturbing content are: When Ashley’s boyfriend gives her a cell phone, they take off their clothes and go to bed to celebrate, and at the prom, a couple engages in oral sex behind the bleachers. I was shocked to find these things in a book recommended for our youth. This is not the type of morality and behavior I want to instill my children. I am so sorry I bought it! Truly a waste of good money.”
I love how she put the word Heroine in quotation marks.
You know what makes me sad? She and I probably agree on most things.
Neither one of us want to see kids engaging in dangerous sexual practices. (I am willing to admit, though, that by 12th grade, 60% of teenagers have had sex, and 34% of girls are pregnant at least once by the time they are 20 – hence the concept that passing out condoms to 18-year-olds might be a good idea.) We both wish kids could have healthy relationships with adults they respect and can learn from. We both love our kids and want to raise them with a strong sense of morality and dignity. M4M and I could have coffee, and hang out. Honest.
Where we differ (apparently) is how to deal with kids who aren’t in that position. One of the points in PROM is that Ashley’s unhealthy behaviors – the ones that freaked M4M out so much – are not working for her. Ashley isn’t happy. She has a rotten boyfriend, and no sense of who she is or where she is going. I wrote it that way because I know that is how some kids live. And over the courses of the book, Ashley CHANGES…. ahem, did you hear that M4M? SHE GROWS, MATURES, AND CHANGES.
I wonder if M4M has so little trust in her children that she is afraid if they read a book like PROM they will suddenly start copying all of the behaviors? If anything, her kids would probably say “wow – that’s a crappy way to live. I’m sure glad Ash figured out her stuff by the end of the book.”
What do you think about this?