Genre 📚: YA Contemporary, Queer Lit, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: Forbidden love, Friends to lovers, Falling for pastor’s daughter
Rep ✔️: Bisexual main character, POC side character
CW ⚠️: Religious trauma, Homophobia
Rating ⭐️: 4/5
Riley is done with church — she doesn’t feel safe in that environment being bisexual, and she resents the pastor for shunning her sister. But after getting in trouble at school, she’s forced to go to church camp for a week with the very pastor she hates. And rather than participate in the pastor’s mission to be “saved,” she decides to set out on her own mission to commit the seven deadly sins: sloth, greed, gluttony, wrath, lust, envy, and pride.
The camp setting is sooo nostalgic and fun, especially with Riley going around trying to figure out how to complete her next sin. Some of her strategies are clever, some simple and straightforward, and I love that she gets her fellow campers involved. Things get a little complicated, however, as her feelings for her best friend Julia deepen. Because Julia is also the pastor’s daughter.
The romance was sweet, and the themes of faith and coming out were handled really nicely for a YA book, but I was left wanting more. I would’ve liked Riley’s story to have taken place over summer instead, so we had more time to develop the characters and their relationships. I still had a good time with the whole seven days/seven sins thing, though, and definitely finished the book with a smile on my face.
**Much thanks to NetGalley and Viking Children’s Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Say a Little Prayer will be released on March 4, 2025.
Sara Bechtol 