Lara Zielin strikes just the right balance between faith and skepticism and between humor and thoughtfulness in her debut novel, Donut Days (Speak 2010).  I was a little nervous before reading it.  Some books that deal with Christian characters and themes come across as too preachy.  Others play into the best and worst stereotypes.  Donut Days does neither.  It presents people of faith with all their complexity and disagreements and humanity.

Emma’s world is falling apart, and she doesn’t know where she fits in anymore.  She has never been the perfect preacher’s kid the church expects.  At least her younger sister Lizzie fits the mold.  Now the church led by her parents is being torn apart by arguments over the role of women in church leadership and her parents won’t tell her anything.  Her best friend is no longer speaking to her.  The boy (oh yeah, he’s the son of the opposition leaders) she has been friends with has returned from college as a total hottie.  The final straw comes when Emma’s parents tell her they won’t pay for any college but a Christian college.

Emma sees only one way out–writing the winning scholarship essay for the local paper about donut camp.  Whenever a new Crispy Dream donut franchise opens, people from all over camp out to win prizes while they wait to be the first one served.  What she learns and who she meets at Donut Camp might be more than she bargained for.

My favorite part of this book is the characters.  Emma is likeable and sarcastic, but by no means perfect.  She struggles to sort out her relationships with her parents (who are not perfect, either, but neither are they one-dimensional bad guys), her best friend Natalie (who makes mistakes), and old friend/new love interest Jake.  Emman hopes to escape the drama of church at donut camp, but she immediately runs into a group of tattooed, born-again bikers.  Bear is incredible and unforgettable.  Even the bad guys in the book are treated with compassion.  Emma learns that life and people are a lot more complicated and much messier than first appearances reveal.

I can’t wait to release this title to my classoom.  I can think of several students who will enjoy it.