Review 28: The Devoted

The Devoted by Blair Hurley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While overall I enjoyed this book, there were some problems with it as well. A major one being that I constantly felt like I didn't know the main character. Perhaps that was the point, as Nicole did not know herself, or at least her essence and what was driving her.

Nicole grew up in Boston in a very Catholic household, and at first desired to be a nun. As she grew older she read and studied Buddhism and at 17 ran away on a quest to Colorado to seek out the second leader under the Dalai Lama. Nicole didn't run away alone, she went with her boyfriend Jules and another friend. They left with barely a word to the family.

Part of this book is discovering what happened during the time Nicole was gone, away from the family. Another part of the book is about Nicole trying to leave her life with her Zen Master. Nicole had become too attached, or was he, as the master kept demanding the student-teacher relationship was not to be broken. And can Nicole define her life other than being a teenage runaway?

Nicole's family meanwhile hardly accepts her conversion to Buddhism and despite her running away and over a decade or more of practicing Buddhism, they are still trying to reign her into the Catholic church. And one wonders if Nicole may since she takes up with a guy, also a Catholic from Boston.

As this summary is stating, religion plays a very important part of this book. The fall from disgrace with the scandals in the Catholic faith is covered, as well as digressions with Buddhism, and women's roles, acceptance. Yet these aspects fall short, and if they dove deeper it would have lent for a more powerful book.

Book rating: 3.75 stars