I didn't enter a rating because I don't entirely know how I feel about this story of an out lesbian teen who goes back in the closet at her preacher father's request when they move from Atlanta to suburban, Baptist Rome, Georgia. Jo agrees because her dad makes her an offer she can't refuse, and also, she's alone. Her mom died years ago, her parents are only children, and her new stepfamily is a skosh intolerant. In Atlanta there was a GSA and a queer best friend, and in Rome there are youth group kids who...actually turn out to be pretty nice (despite some of them being a skosh intolerant).

This is a teen romance, so inevitably one of the Georgia peaches softens to Jo, and strangely, it's Jo who keeps their forbidden love hidden. She's discovered that not making waves and getting approval from her intolerant stepgrandmother has its charms. Plus she wants to please her dad even while righteously pissed at him. Jo is passionately Christian, so maybe that's why she obeys her father's strong request.

It's a compelling story, and I'm sad it's over, but I found Jo's deceptions torturous, and not in the exquisite way--more along the lines of "snap out of it!" But what do I know about queer teen life in the Bible Belt? Maybe the story, as it's told, is necessary for folx in some demographics.