| The Abstinence Teacher | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 92 reviews)
Sales Rank: 3861
Category: Book
Author: Tom Perrotta
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Studio: St. Martin's Press
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
Label: St. Martin's Press
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.4
ISBN: 0312358334
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312358334
ASIN: 0312358334
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Release Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise kids. It’s got the proverbial good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. It’s the kind of place where parents are involved in their children’s lives, where no opportunity for enrichment goes unexplored.
Ruth Ramsey is the human sexuality teacher at the local high school. She believes that “pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power.” Ruth’s younger daughter’s soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim belongs to The Tabernacle, an evangelical Christian church that doesn’t approve of Ruth’s style of teaching. And Ruth in turn doesn’t applaud The Tabernacle’s mission to take its message outside its doors. Adversaries in a small-town culture war, Ruth and Tim instinctively mistrust each other. But when a controversy on the soccer field pushes the two of them to actually talk to each other, they are forced to take each other at something other than face value.
The Abstinence Teacher exposes the powerful emotions that run beneath the surface of modern American family life and explores the complex spiritual and sexual lives of ordinary people. Elegantly written, it is characterized by the distinctive mix of satire and compassion that have animated Perrotta’s previous novels.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 87 more reviews...
 Our Moral Muddle June 17, 2008
Do teachers have the right to express their opinions to their students?
Should sports coaches have the right to impress their religious beliefs upon their athletes?
Do parents have the right to say who their children have the right to pray with?
Should parents stay married because it's easier for their kids if they do?
These are just some of the complex moral questions embedded in Tom Perrotta's well-written novel, The Abstinence Teacher. While offering no new insights, Perrotta's story brims with well-drawn and likeable characters of all sorts of moral beliefs. The only weak part of the book is the ending because it doesn't provide any clear-cut answers.
Overall, this is a highly absorbing look at the world many suburban families live in today.
Recommended.
 Seemed like it was written with the eventual movie in mind May 15, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Like others, this was my first reading of Tom Perrotta's work. While I've seen Election and Little Children and really liked both movies, I thought now was the time to read one of his books.
What could have been just a killer topic ended up being a long-winded exploration of suburban life and views on sex and abstinence. In fact, I gave up on this book after reading only a quarter of it. There was great writing and potential for a really good story. However, Perrotta took such a long time getting to the story that it almost seemed as if he was fleshing out so many details that he already had the screenplay in mind as he was writing this. For example, he describes a childrens' soccer game in such detail even though it's a background event. He does this several times, and quickly gets off topic and even away from the main characters. I'm sure I'll see the movie if and when it comes out, and I will probably enjoy it because all of the things Perrotta's detailed in the book will appropriately fall into the background in a motion picture.
A weaker effort May 6, 2008
I wanted to love this book. I adored Election. I'd read Little Children once a week if I had the time. And the writing and characters are once again a lot of fun in The Abstinence Teacher.
But there are to many moments in this novel that just fall flat. First of all Ruth Ramsy our hero makes the shocking statement to the class before the book has begun. Her act which spins her life into trouble happens off stage. And she's never in trouble really it's just a slight inconvenience. But when we get to Tim is when the story runs into its real problems. He does things simply because he knows he should and for no other reason. And it's flat. He just doesn't work. And that's about all there is to know because there's no real story here. The best moments come in the form of flashbacks.
Perrotta's one of the best in the business and there are some great passages in this book. But overall this is one of his weaker efforts.
 Perrotta's expanded scope results in a mediocre novel April 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had high hopes for this novel, having read and enjoyed all of Perrotta's previous works. However, in "The Abstinence Teacher", Perrotta tries to extend his focus from the nebulous boundary between youth and full adulthood to a tale of cultural warfare as experienced by two adults, Tim and Ruth. Perrotta writes well about moving into adulthood, as can be seen in any of his previous works. Unfortunately, in trying to describe the culture wars between Evangelicals and Seculars, he has failed at both explicating current events and at writing an interesting work of fiction.
Tim, an Evangelical who has had a childhood of dope, easy sex, a failed marriage, and lack of responsibility, is not delineated well. His trials in the novel just don't have verisimilitude. For instance [SPOILER] at the end he seems to have abandoned his church and his wife, but the rationale for his leaving his wife is poorly understood, both by him and the reader. His antagonist in the novel, Ruth, a divorcee with two daughters, both of whom seem to be accepting the Evangelical message by the end of the book, seems to be attracted to the man who violated Ruth's sense of propriety WITH HER DAUGHTER! Is he the only man she can find, or have? Maybe, as much of the book is focused on her lack of sex. Is this reason enough for a woman to want a man who is the main reason why she was removed from her teaching position? None of this made sense to me; the characters needed to be better drawn so that their choices seem originate from them rather than from any design by the author. [END SPOILER].
The children seemed real. The adults did not. Sorry, but having an Evangelical with doubts does not by itself give realism to the character.
Better luck next time.
Disappointing and humorless April 19, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Throughout the reading of this book, I kept returning to the cover so I could make sure I hadn't gotten the author confused with someone else. In this book, Perrotta seems to have lost the sense of humor that I enjoyed in Election and Joe College. Instead, this book felt preachy and condescending. As a Christian, I thought Perrotta's depiction of church life and pastors was very one dimensional. While hypocrisy most definitely is present in the church (as it is everywhere else), all the Christian characters in this novel were either weak or exceedingly over the top and unlikable. I realize the book was intended as a work of fiction and that exaggerations are at times necessary, but what can only be described as his hammering of the liberal message, came off as almost desperate. Perrotta clearly has had exposure to the church or did significant research for this book. Either way, I find it regrettable that the impression he gives the reader of the experience reflects a small part of the culture and completely leaves out the must fundamental element, grace. The giving of 2 stars is my act of grace for a book that, to say the least, definitely left an impression on me.
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