Meanwhile, Del's dad presses a condom on his son "just in case," subtly encouraging him to be a "ladies' man." And Del joins the purity club just to get closer to a girl he's infatuated with. Because of this, the school reconsiders its abstinence-only sex ed curriculum and replaces it with a class called "Healthy Life." In response to that, a local pastor creates a "Purity Pledge" group, for teens who promise to stay virgins (or stop having sex if they'd started). Then the girls who gave birth started releasing YouTube videos outing the boys who are the fathers. There was a rash of pregnancies among girls in his school, rumored to have been driven by a pact.
Parents need to know that Not So Pure and Simple is about high school junior Del, who's dealing with a world that increasingly revolves around sex. A scene where parents who are supposed to be supervising a teen party are upstairs drinking margaritas while teens are downstairs having sex.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. Toxic masculinity is not talked about enough, and Lamar Giles shines in speaking to this and other issues in this book.A scene where teens sneak away from their parents and drink wine. He’s a nice guy who is complicated and flawed, and I loved every minute of his story. And though Del is all about Kiera, his actions never once consider her feelings, or what she might want.ĭel’s not all troublemaker, nor all squeaky clean. Del might be acting with the best intentions, but his friends are giving him the side eye, and even his dad is worried about what this pledge means for his manhood. Like the tv show Sex Education, this book is an excellent portrayal of a male protagonist dealing with the complications of sex. Even if that means taking a Purity Pledge. Which means he’s ready to do anything (however unconventional) to get the girl he wants.
But he’s never had a shot until now-it’s their junior year and she just broke up with her boyfriend. The novel follows Del, who has had a childhood crush on Kiera Westing since literally forever. But in Not So Pure and Simple we see just that: a complex portrait of a lovably imperfect boy struggling with his identity in many forms. There can never be a Black teenage boy that falls somewhere in the middle. So much of what is fed to the masses is that Black boys are troublemakers, or that there are only two types of kids: one that is a problem child and another that is squeaky clean. One of the things I’m loving about YA right now is that we’re seeing more and more stories being told by Black male writers about Black boys.
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