The Redemption of Daya Keane

Gr 9 Up–In her small Arizona town, artistic Daya is quietly out to her best friend Stella—herself a loudly out lesbian—and a few high school classmates. In Daya’s emotionally fragile single mother’s view, that identity makes her a sinner. The solution? Haul Daya off to Grace Redeemer, an Evangelical church that influences local parents to make sure their teens are heterosexual but waiting for sex and are signing up for Pure Prom instead of “regular” prom. Daya may have been able to handle her mother’s fragility and Stella’s vivacious social life but now she has problems of her own. She is crushing on Beckett, a presumably straight girl who is in the church’s youth group, and discovers her friend B’Rad has a more traumatizing home life than she does. Author Gordon writes so compellingly that readers are placed firmly within Daya’s worldview; she feels real enough to hear and touch. Teen interactions are genuine, whether well-intentioned or duplicitous, and adults are varied in their personalities and motives.