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Review: The Book of Essie

The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A big thank you to Penguin Random House Canada (@penguinrandomca) for giving me a copy of this beautiful hard copy of The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir (@meghanmacleanweir).

I must admit that I was a bit leery to start this book. I was concerned that the story would be dealing with religion and its flakiness. Well, it did, but not in a way I expected. Although this novel is dealing with the deceits of organized religion, it sends a clear message about the right to justice and freedom.

Essie is one of the stars on a popular reality show called Six of Hicks which follows the day to day living of an evangelical minister and his family. At seventeen, Essie is the youngest child in the family. Essie is pregnant which is an issue to her mother Celia because of the impact it will have on their reputation and the popularity of the show. After analyzing all the possible solutions to this inconvenience, Celia decides that the best course of action is to marry off Essie and have the audience believe that the baby came out of this union. Roarke, a young local man, whose family has serious financial issues is her best choice. Celia offers lots of money to Roarke and his family to convince him to be part of this deceit. But who is being deceived? Soon Roarke and Essie create an alliance to find freedom and justice.

I could not put the book down and really enjoyed the three storylines: Essie, Roarke and Liberty Bell (a journalist with her own religious experience) who becomes an accomplice to their story. Fantastic book!

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