Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler – a Review

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Description:
Mina is seventeen. A virgin. And pregnant.

Mina is top of her class, girlfriend to the most ambitious guy in school, able to reason and study her way through anything. But when she suddenly finds herself pregnant—despite having never had sex—her orderly world collapses. Almost nobody believes Mina’s claims of virginity. Her father assumes that her boyfriend is responsible; her boyfriend believes she must have cheated on him. As news of Mina’s story spreads, there are those who brand her a liar. There are those who brand her a heretic. And there are those who believe that miracles are possible—and that Mina’s unborn child could be the greatest miracle of all.

Review:

A crone walks in at closing time to Mina’s pizza joint job (bringing to mind that of the queen in disguise from Snow White). She chooses a booth featuring a portrait of the Madonna. Instead of ordering food, she unloads a prophecy. Like Mina would stick around for that nonsense?! Like any sensible, uneasy 17 year old, too freaked out to listen to the rants of an old woman: Mina tears out!

“Mina, no! Wait!” Iris called out. “I need your approval, you have to accept…”

“Yes, Iris. Yes, whatever you need to hear,” I said, without turning back, already trying to erase her face from my memory.

Mina inadvertently sets in motion the most impossible event of her life. Hindsight is 20/20, but who would’ve thought: A modern day miracle?! Welcome to Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler. I put another book down, already a chapter in, to inhale this book. I gave my 12 year old daughter so many updates — I had to pry it from her hands!

I’d tried doing some online research, but that only made everything infinitely scarier: diabetes; chronic fatigue syndrome; multiple forms of highly rare, highly untreatable cancers; depression. Nothing fit, not really, but I was still terrified.

Well, who could expect an immaculate conception?! Isn’t this subject too sacred for fiction? It’s not an easy topic; quite delicate (even offensive) in fact, especially if you’re faithful. While I am, I’m neither zealous nor disapproving by nature – it was intriguing! Mina was clearly selected. How can this be done to a child?! How much will it mirror the Virgin Mary? An endless amount of questions and events begin Mina’s journey to self-discovery, to “the ultimate test of character”.

I was struck by the enormity, the gravity, of the job ahead of Mina: How to explain her situation. It’s outrageous, preposterous. It’s biblical. Who could believe the old woman is responsible?! It reminded me of Merida from Disney’s Brave running back to the witch’s cottage – only to discover she had cleaned shop and Merida would have to find her own solution. But believe it or not, though Mina continuously replayed the life-altering meeting in her mind, she took to her new responsibility with a maturity (and grace) she didn’t even know she possessed.

A problem I had with the book was the absence of explanation. I’m familiar with the birth of Jesus Christ, but this…isn’t…the same story. Just because Mina yelled out her consent, clearly under duress, the old woman is only a fleeting, silent visitor. Searching for answers resulted in more questions. It came down to purpose and faith. But did it never occur to Mina that she was merely the vessel – that she would in fact never raise the baby? I put the book down repeatedly, bogged down by all the What if’s…

There is no way Mina could have imagined the rejection and harassment. I was crushed. One BFF feels lied to while the other is skeptical yet supportive; her mother was resolutely on Mina’s side yet painfully silent when Mina’s father’s fury dethroned any semblance of peace in the house. And what of the best boyfriend she never thought could be hers?! Unconvinced and worst of all, deceived. I was exhausted by all the disappointment Mina’s pregnancy caused and protective as a mother, for the cruelty she had to endure. And this was only Mina’s first trimester! I kept praying this was only a “test”, but why would they (who is they?!) allow a child to suffer through humiliation and scorn? I was riveted, despite the nearly 500 pages in which Ms. Detweiler takes to tell you.     

“I don’t want people to think there’s a random daddy running around out there, some kind of meaningless one-night stand. How do I win, Mom? How do I make people hate me the least? Because that’s the best I can hope for.”

Wow, right?! Ms. Detweiler wrote a wonderful, fictional story about the creation of miraculous life.   The supporting cast of characters does a phenomenal job of embracing the unknown and giving life to fear.

“But it’s like that old saying—‘those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.’

The ending was not my favorite. You can imagine what happens, that’s no big spoiler. It’s the fact…that it did? Was Ms. Detweiler really going to speculate as to the baby’s future?! She’d be writing history and that’s a path I’m not interested in following.

I loved Mina’s crisis of faith; I loved her commitment (even when a tiny spark of romance threatened to veer her off course – swoony storyline amidst so much division); I loved her age-appropriate meltdowns. Mina was meant to be marvelous and I believe Ms. Detweiler achieves just that.

Reviewed by Carmen

Copy provided by Publisher