What frustrates me is that only part of it had been necessary to make the book just as good. There’s a substantial amount of swearing (the f-word keeps popping up for instance), crude words (especially for certain anatomy), there are a few explicit sex scenes and some violence described in detail. That makes it a book I wish had been written from a more Christian perspective, or at least a bit less crude. I think teens will recognize many issues in The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden, either from their own lives or from friends. The ending is very unsatisfying by the way, I didn’t realize it when I started reading that the book will have a sequel which you’ll need to read to get the rest of the story. It’s a bit too much, yet it’s described very real and intense and so you keep reading to see how they deal with what life has done to them. There’s a lot of hurt in this book, like abuse, rape, discrimination, anorexia, cutting, and bullying to name the most important issues that come up. The same goes for Callie and as their love story develops, you really start rotting for them to get through it and conquer their pain. Despite that, how Kayden deals with his pain rings true. For me, toning the level of abuse a bit down would have made it more realistic. The first felt more real to me than the second, also because the violence against Kayden is quite frankly a bit extreme. That takes some getting used to, because you need to keep remembering in whose head you are and sometimes it pulled me out of the story.Ĭallie is trying to deal with a sexual trauma in her past, just as Kayden is trying to come to terms with an abusive dad.
The book is written in the first person and switches between Callie and Kayden. The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden is the story of two very messed up 18-year olds (Callie and Kayden obviously) and their two equally messed up best friends, Seth and Luke respectively.
It’s definitely not a Christian book and there are plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t recommend it to your students (which I’ll discuss below), yet it is very compelling. I read it because it kept popping up on ‘best young adult fiction of 2012’ lists, just like Catching Jordan which I reviewed before.
The coincidence of Callie and Kayden (written by Jessica Sorensen) is a young adult novel, but one with very mature content.
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