If You Really Loved Me is subtitled "100 Questions on Dating, Relationships and Sexual Purity; Revised and Expanded" and that is the book's format. Each chapter has questions (from students) with answers by Jason Evert about chastity, the meaning of sex, dating and courtship, pornography, homosexuality, etc. Jason's expertise is based on an undergraduate degree in Counseling and Theology, a graduate level degree in Theology, being a staff apologist for Catholic Answers and his own life experience. He also has spoken internationally to more than 100,000 high school and college students.
I have never read the first edition so I don't know what is revised and/or expanded in this one. Overall the chapters deal with topics and questions that are on the minds of students - but I would not recommend this book for young teens (13-15 yr olds) unless they have already been exposed to worldly ideas through friends or the media.
I felt the chapter on contraception to be a bit much for high school students; the topic encompassed nearly 25% of the book. It came across as a scare tactic. Instead of focusing solely on the Church's teaching of why contraception is wrong - the author spent many pages going into all the negative side effects of contraception. And then 20 more pages on the horrors of STDs. I know these are important topics but I don't know that scare tactics work on teens but then I've not spoken to over 100,000 students so maybe the author knows something I do not.
The author was wrapping up the book talking about renewing purity (for those that have strayed) and staying pure but then he tossed in a chapter on vocations. Vocations are certainly important but the chapter felt out of place as an ending to this book. I will be passing this book along to my college freshman daughter but I'm not sure if this is the appropriate book for my high school students.
This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on If You Really Loved Me.
2 comments:
Does he have an answer for "How far is too far?"
He does - he is against French kissing and gives reasons why (and I can see how it makes sense; not sure I would have agreed as a teenager) He admits that he too didn't think twice about it while in high school.
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