This Fine Life

By Eva Marie Everson

This Fine Life By Eva Marie Everson / Revell It's the summer of 1959 and Mariette Puttnam has just graduated from boarding school. Returning to her privileged life at home in a small Georgia town, she isn't sure what lies ahead. Is the answer waiting for her on the narrow stairwell of her father's apparel factory? A tender story of an unlikely romance! 352 pages, softcover from Baker.

CRM RATING: M
Explain: There is description of romantic/sexual interaction between the main characters in almost every chapter with much less emphasis on other aspects of their relationship, such as communication.

SPIRITUAL RATING: 2
Explain: The main character never exhibits characteristics of salvation. Though married to a pastor, she has multiple conversations with characters expressing her inability to understand anyone having a personal relationship with God or personal prayer. Her feelings never change toward the end of the book, except for one mention in the epilogue that she and her husband “both prayed about it”.

CRM REVIEW:

The daughter of a rich factory owner, Mariette has grown up in wealth and priveledge. As she reaches adulthood she has to make a decision: her father’s desire for her college education, her mother’s desire for her high-status marriage to a wealthy young man, or her own dreams of passionate true love. Through whichever choice, she must learn to live in contentment in the circumstances she has chosen. A chance meeting in the stairwell of her father’s factory changes her life forever.

Everson is a wonderful writer and I was drawn right into the book. However, I have great concern that the heroine never truly grows in her spiritual walk and indeed, appears to remain "unsaved" throughout.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND INSIDE:

Sex between characters - Yes

Romance between man and woman - Yes

Kissing between grown characters -Yes

Fondling - Yes

Sex described but subtle - Yes

Sexual tension -Yes

Felt arousal when reading certain scenes -Yes

Felt this book properly represented a Biblical Worldview - No

I would NOT recommend to a Christian Audience

Other things of special note: SPOILERS Thayne and Mariette elope after knowing each other less than a week. Mariette lies to her parents and sees Thayne after they have forbidden it. There is indirect mention of a child being molested by her stepfather. Mariette loses her first baby and the miscarriage scene is described.

Reviewer: Amy Burbee

Review by our Teen Reviewer