Heretics Anonymous- Katie Henry

I read about Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry recently on someone else's blog (and for the life of me, I can't remember who; if it was you, please leave me a comment and I'll credit you with a link to your review here! This made me realize I need to start writing down where I find all these great recommendations). The cover alone made me laugh, and the premise made it sound like it was my kind of book. Religion in YA? Bring it on!

Thanks to his father's job, Michael's moved a lot throughout his life, and this time he's landed at a private Catholic high school. Which wouldn't be the biggest deal, except he's an atheist, so it's a little uncomfortable. Feeling out-of-place and friendless on his first day, Michael latches on to Lucy after her no-holds-barred response against the quote about well-behaved women rarely making history in theology class. Surely Lucy's like him, not fitting in among all these sheeple.

Except Lucy does believe. Maybe not exactly the way the Church would want her to, but she still counts herself in. In spite of this, Lucy drags Michael with her to the group of friends who have dubbed themselves Heretics Anonymous, which includes a gay Jewish boy, a Reconstructionist Pagan girl, and a dresscode-flaunting Unitarian. Together, they decide to start shaking things up at the school. Rules, especially the pointless ones made by hypocrites, were made to be broken, right?

At first, exposing the school's hypocrisy merely triggers debate amongst the student body, but when Michael's family situation causes him to make a few decisions based on anger, the real-life repercussions begin to fall outside of the group. It's no longer fun and games when everyone's getting hurt, and Michael will have to use what he's been learning at St. Clare's Preparatory School in order to make things right.

This is a laugh-out-loud book (I figured the people sitting by me in the library were going to think I was nuts, with my constant chuckling as I turned the pages) with themes of justice, redemption, and self-reflection. Ms. Henry never gets in the reader's face with a message; rather, she lets the group of friends' actions and emotions speak for themselves. The friends are able to engage in spirited but productive debate over issues such as dress code and the school's firing of a married lesbian teacher, defending each other when appropriate, telling each other to back off when necessary. While they may not always agree perfectly with each other or with the Church and school, their ability to express their feelings on each matter at hand and make the others understand the importance of their position is invigorating. Far from being a heavy-handed morality message, I think Ms. Henry has written a great example of what a cohesive friend group should look like here.

I attended Catholic school from two years of preschool all the way up until eighth grade graduation, and while I no longer consider myself Catholic, a lot of this rang true for me, particularly the religious jokes (I think we all made the joke about cannibalism at one point in our many, many hours of religion class) and the seething debate over religious issues and doctrine (I don't remember one girl in my class who was okay with the idea of never using birth control, and you better believe we pushed back on that one). I do remember a few students who were more pious than others, but none quite as extreme (or as snotty about it) as Theresa...but then again, we were a pretty small school, so I'm sure students like her exist somewhere.

There was a moment that stopped me in this book, that surprised me. Close to the end of Chapter 14, Lucy brings up the Magnificat. *(If you're not familiar, it's from the Gospel of Luke, 1:46-55, where Mary sings after she's been told she's going to give birth to the son of God.) It's Lucy's favorite because it's revolutionary, and she tells Michael about how it was banned in Argentina in the 1970's after being used by mothers of people killed by the military, and how it was banned in Spain in the 1930's by Francisco Franco. This all struck a chord with me, not because I was familiar with it (I can't remember if we were taught the significance of the Magnificat or not), but because I'd recently read something about it and couldn't remember where. When I got home, to my surprise I actually found it again, a Washington Post article titled 'Mary's 'Magnificat' in the Bible is revolutionary. Some evangelicals silence her.' Up until the point I read this article back in December, I had no idea how revolutionary or subversive these verses have been considered, and it was fascinating to me to see this pop up again in my life.

This was really a fun, funny, thought provoking book. I see that Ms. Henry has another book coming out in August of this year, titled Let's Call It a Doomsday; you better believe I'll be breaking down the library door to check out a copy!


Visit Katie Henry's website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.