Multiple pony-of-view story centering a family of Christian faith that interact with Crossroads, a group formed for the “hip”, new teens and their new (ostensibly) struggles, and the cross purposes of generations of different socialization generating internal and external drama.

Mostly my thoughts on this was: It works. The characters and believable. The dialogue is probably the bedrock, feeling organic and believable for every age group. I particularly admire that the individual belief structure is subjectively represented really well. Acting as a galvanizing force to create the best and worst qualities in the individual, and each unwilling to confront the aspect of their faith that incentivizes the terrible aspects of themselves they continually act out. Counterbalanced with their fostering of love and outreach in others who don’t oppose the catalysts of self-destruction, the characters feel fully fleshed out and nuanced.

However, as much as every interaction feels organic. There does exist an over engineered quality to the fiction at a meta level. Even it’s messiness feels like a display. And so it was hard to do more to admire the story at a distance, rather than get immersed in it. Everything interlocks. And there are conceits that are contrived, but those become visibly necessary to the reader, adding to the artificial quality of the plotting. I bet most people wouldn’t mind this at all. It’s a subjective quibble but, I think why I was completely taken with it as others seem to be.