The Homeschool Liberation League

As a homeschooler walking through the teen section of the library, this book caught my eye. Yay! A book about other homeschoolers! Finally, something good that I can relate to!

Not so much.

Maybe my Christian homeschooler experience is a little too narrow. But nothing in this book was at all relatable to any part of my education. It's not like the girl, oh, hmm, maybe DISCUSSED her education with her parents. She was enrolled in middle school, but she just walked out on the first day of eighth grade. Because it felt right in her little hormonal heart.

So she wanders around instead of being in school. While foraging for food she meets a boy who is playing his violin, outside, in his pajamas. And we know how it goes with thirteen-year-olds, they know everything there is to know about the world and relationships so they fall in love and start going out. Things don't stay quite as sweet as you'd like. I definitely remember the scene with hands in each other's back pockets, then hands going up the girl's shirt.

The characters are also very disrespectful. Sure, no kid is perfect, but this girl decides to stay at home when at the same time it seems like all she does is complain about how her mom is doing things. There's some swearing among adult characters. They all act stupid! Like, we could go about this like adults, thinking and planning and sharing opinions and making compromises, or we can scream at each other while our young girl goes into the woods to make out with her boyfriend.

If you like this kind of book, the useless sort of book that doesn't really teach or entertain, the kind of book that's mostly good as a time waster and as kindling, then go ahead and read it. Be aware that this isn't even close to what homeschooling is like. I would strongly recommend against reading this book.