Find your voice!

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It's hard to write a review of this book without giving away too much information, but here goes. The Virtue of Sin is based upon the life of 16 year old Mirian who was born into a cult (New Jerusalem) and knows nothing about the outside world. One of the "traditions" that the cult practices is the Matrimony ceremony. Young members of the cult are matched and married. Supposedly, they dream about who their spouse is going to be, but is that really how it works? When a problem arises at Miriam's matriomony ceremony and she is not chosen by the person she dreamed of, she begins to question all that is going on around here. God is the One who speaks to them in their dreams, but is it really God and if he speaks does it really even matter to Daniel (the prophet). Miriam begins to find her voice and finds out some things that are shocking to her. How can she get the others to believe what she has learned. There are several other characters that are important to the plot and the chapters alternate between them. I loved being able to hear the points of view of these characters. When I first started reading this book, I thought that it was a dystopian book, but around midway through, I discovered that it was a cult. This made it all the more interesting for me! The first part of the book dragged a little bit for me but as I kept on reading I was totally drawn into the story. The ending was fast paced and had many surprises and shocking findings for Miriam and some of the other members of the cult. The book is labeled as YA but I would be cautious about having students below high school age read it. I think that some of the situations are for a more mature audience. Thank you to #BookishFirst and #PenguinTeen for the ARC!