How It's Done, Christine Kole MacLean

MacLean, Christine Kole (2006)
How It’s Done
Woodbury, Minn. : Flux
0738710296
Genre: Realistic Fiction

When Michael Irving, a gorgeous college professor, walks into her life, eighteen-year-old Grace finds herself freed from her sheltered life only to realize the complications of being the lover of an older man.
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Grace Passedge is a senior at a small Midwestern high school. She has been raised in a strict Christian fundamentalist home with a domineering, self-righteous fathr and a passive, submissive mother. Several years earlier, Grace was pressured into signing a celibacy contract, and her father continues to control her freedom and personal choices. He forbids her from drinking alcohol, reading romance novels and attending a rock concert. Grace is eager for self-discovery and independence and soon meets 31-year-old Michael Irving, a local college professor. She quickly becomes involved in a whirlwind romance with Michael, who discusses poetry and plies her with wine and exotic foods during their dates. Grace embraces Michael, change and adulthood and starts leading a double life. Grace’s father inevitably learns about the romance and forbids Grace from continuing the affair. Grace refuses and Michael quickly proposes. Grace worries that she is pregnant and feels more and more pressured to marry. She feels she is being swept along a path that includes a lifelong commitment, estrangement from her family and one that causes her to compromise her ethics. As the wedding plans progress, Graces learns more and more about her future husband. Young Adult readers will be pulled into Grace’s personal drama as she tries to navigate her way through freedom and consequence. Chick lit readers looking for more depth will want to pick up this title.