Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: Becoming Beka Series – Books 2-4
Author: Sarah Anne Sumpolec
Publisher: Moody Publishers
ISBN: : #2 – 080246452-1
#3 – 0-8024-6453-X
#4 – 0-8024-6454-8
Release Date: 2004 and 2005
Genre/Sub-genre: Young Adult Fiction
Year/Setting: Current
Overall rating: 4.5
Sexual content rating: None
Language (profanity) rating: None
Violence Rating: None
Sarah's Website:
www.sarahannesumpolec.com/BecomingBeka/index.html
The Alliance illustrates the pressure and confusion which goes with new-found faith. Beka has returned to school to find things might actually be a bit harder than before especially since her friends (or at least most of them) don’t care for anything she is coming to believe. Things come to a head when she is cast in a lesser role and her friend Gretchen as the lead in the school play. Gretchen believes herself to be a true leader and that leading is towards the occult.
The Passage finds Beka dealing with a very serious teenage girl problem – teen age boys. Through church activities, she has met Josh and he intrigues her greatly but he will be leaving in the fall to go to college quite a ways away. Mark still remains in the picture (from book one) but he is a dilemma in himself – great looking but morally he is slipping a bit. To top it all off, her father has started dating a woman Beka does not like.
The Reveal takes Beka into her senior year in high school. Things with Gretchen still seem a bit tense but things with Gretchen’s right hand girl, Mai, are even worse. To compound the issue, Mai has started befriending Lucy (Beka’s freshman sister) and Beka knows Mai is up to no good. College applications are looming and Beka isn’t sure what she wants to do. Of course, the issues with Mark and Josh still abound.
Sarah Ann Sumpolec carried forth a really well done story in Becoming Beka. The story began in The Masquerade and has continued marvelously well through the next three books. The stories all flow quite well into each other. They could be separated but there were just a couple of small instances where it would have helped to have read the previous books.
Beka is a very real, creative character and one the reader can easily become. The topics which arise lead can lead to many really good discussions. While I originally was thinking high school, I think this series can be expanded into middle school quite easily especially if there is an adult who wants to talk with the young woman about the topics involved. Very well done!
Lori
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