The Promise of Jesse Woods by Chris FabryMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Preacher's kid meets beautiful impoverished tough girl.
This novel won a Christy award for general fiction in 2017. It is written by a man and the main character is a boy. It is a dual timeline novel (1972 and 1984). Usually I'm not avid to read Christian fiction written by men, but this one is excellent. At the end of this review I'll explain why I decided to read it.
It is a coming of age story with plenty of flawed characters. Matt is forced to move to a small town, Dogwood, in West Virginia. He's a young teenager with a big problem -- he's overweight. He doesn't expect to make new friends but by great good fortune he happens to meet Jesse and she introduces him to her friend Dickie. They are both misfits in their own way dealing with hatred and scorn coming from most of the people in their town. The three kids fit together well when they aren't arguing.
The novel switches back and forth from chapters set in Matt's 1972 childhood, and his 1984 young adult live in which he lives far away in a big city. He finds out his old friend Jesse is about to marry and he drops everything to go back to Dogwood to see her before the big day.
Why I decided to read this: I'm doing a "Read and Roam" challenge through the 2026 Reading Challenge group here on Goodreads. I decided I'll be reading only Christy award winning novels as I love reading Christian fiction. So far I've roamed from Maine to New York to West Virginia by reading Christian novels set in those states.
This novel is clean and recommended by me. I very much enjoyed listening to the audio version.
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