Corinne by Rebecca Morrow Published by St. Martin's Publishing Group on July 12, 2022
Genres: Fiction / Family Life / General, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Women
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781250280008"I was riveted...A modern-day Romeo & Juliet."—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways
You want to walk away from the things that are bad for you and never look back.
That's what Corinne Callahan wants.
Cast out of the fundamentalist church she was raised in and cut off from her family, Corinne builds a new life for herself. A good one. But she never stops missing the life—and the love— she's left behind.
It's Enoch Miller who ruins everything for her. It was always Enoch Miller. She'll never get him out from under her skin.
Set over fifteen years and told with astonishing intimacy, Rebecca Morrow's Corinne is the story of a woman who risks everything she's built for the one man she can never have.
After finishing this novel, I looked up the background info for the novel. Specifically, what genre is this classified under which depends on what source is looked up. On the publisher website it’s “literary fiction,” the copyright page classifies this as “erotic” and “romance” fiction, and Goodreads has it listed as “romance,” “fiction,” and “contemporary.” Clarity around what genre this falls under would be helpful, but also knowing what the author wanted to prove would’ve been great. No matter what, the novel falls short for both romance and literary fiction.
As a romance or erotic novel, I’m not rooting for these two people to be together. The only way they maybe can make it is if they find another church (it’s Wichita, KS, they can find one) and go to therapy to deal with the religious trauma and shame. Personally, I don’t understand Corinne’s focus on Enoch cause he doesn’t seem that great. Okay, so he’s somewhat nice to her when they’re growing up and as an adult, he has a stable job and can provide for her. But that’s a pretty low bar. It’s especially annoying knowing that Corinne has a great career. Of course, people are allowed to decide whatever they want to do in their life and choosing romance isn’t a bad thing. But in relation to how different their values are and what they believe it just doesn’t seem like it’s going to work. There’s also the pressure of Enoch giving up his standing in the church that’s going to cause problems in the future or make Corinne feel like she can’t leave him because of this sacrifice.
Yes, this did have some interesting ideas of theology and religion (specifically Christianity). I appreciated the fact that the fundamentalist religion was both specific enough to cause friction and issues, but is vague enough to not point out any fundamentalist religious sect. Other than that, I’m not sure what the book’s point or thesis is. Corinne stays in love with Enoch through high school, even after he threw her under the bus, into adulthood. A man who firmly believes in this religion and has a ton of shame around his life. He’s someone who says that he doesn’t agree with how the church treats Corinne or Shannon, yet his actions are in complete opposite of his words as he continues to be a member of the church. Whereas, Corinne’s not a member of the church nor does she want to go. She makes a point to say that he can’t try to convince her about religion or going to church. Are we supposed to support this couple? Do we want Enoch to stay in the church with Corinne not going? Is Corinne eventually supposed to go back to the fold? Or are they both supposed to leave? It’s all unclear, and leans towards Enoch definitely staying in the church. I’m all for writing novels about fundamentalist sects and the problems they have is good but brushing aside those issues and ending it with a marriage seems to walk back the entire novel.
This book was definitely well written, whoever wrote it did an amazing job in the quality of writing. The content just seems to be all over the place without any road map on where we were going or what the point of the trip is.
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