Jack Weyland

I am constantly scared for these characters, more so that they could exist in any plane of existence and that someone might try to recreate this. I listened to both audiobook and read the book and both characters are annoying, there's so much WHIMSICAL behavior from children and young adults that don't belong bursting from the mouth of a person that age. And even as adults, they often read as children.

Even the book description addresses the Ferris wheel scene. There are many moments like show more this that feel almost along the lines of blackmail. A perfect example is one telling the other they're engaged when they are, in fact, not, and the other party had no thought upon marriage let alone romance.

This book is extremely racist. Especially for the 80s. That was right after a lot of love and acceptance and right before the 90s changes. But Charly is full of awful racism(plural) and racist prerogative. Native Americans are also written as essentially barely even human, much like a certain Disney movie.

Our main characters are also, mainly Sam, racist, sexist, and extremely religious. Though I don't remember it coming up in book, Sam is also clearly homophobic. He's also patronizing. Meanwhile Charly has the personality of girl. She's a pixie love dream, a being who is wholly unreal and "quirky". She's written childish and often as much younger than Sam, to the point in some scenes I was certain he was dating a mentally regressed woman or someone with severe bipolar or emotional issues left untreated.

With all that said, it's almost like it's a comedy, right? Wrong. This is Mormon propaganda given to children to help them embrace a life where men are in power and women are lucky if they're the only wife. This is doctrine through and through. Charly and Sam are just puppets being used to sell children and youth into a religion that doesn't care about their well-being at all.

Read if you like trash and bad books, but skip otherwise. show less

This is kind of funny in some ways - Lisa pretending to be mormon and trying to fit into the culture is amusing. The premise is somewhat unbelievable, but the development of Lisa's character and her growing desire to be who she is pretending to be is interesting.

I love Jack Weyland's books - I have read them since I was a teenager back in the 80's. They speak to me. The characters are warm, and realistic.

In this book, we primarily have the character of Adam, the son of Charly and Sam (this is the third book in a series, and those are the first two book titles). Adam travels through a story of self discovery in this book, which covers about a year's length in time. He explores themes of intimacy, isolation, love, thrift, hard work, and education. show more Jack deals with each of these themes gently, often with humor, sometimes with a salt of the earth perspective.

This book speaks of our common humanity and how we can find community with our families, despite being hurt by them. show less

Average Mormon young adult fiction. What I found most appealing was the exploration of how easy it is to be swayed away from things you think you believe strongly. The story seemed a little melodramatic and the characters were kind of two-dimensional but it was an entertaining read.