Book Review: Moment of Truth

Title: Moment of Truth

Author: Angela Miller Curtis

Date: 2023

Quote: "I like going out with our friends, but I'm looking forward to it being just the two of us."

Memo to young men: When a young woman--at least a desirable one like Allison, a good student from a good family, attending college on a merit scholarship, Most Likely to Succeed, and apparently even pretty on top of it all--says "I'm looking forward to it being just the two of us," she's looking forward to a meaningful conversation about her date's background, his hopes for the future, his "feelings" in general, why he asked her for a date, and what he likes about her. Hand holding is appropriate. A kiss might be indicated. There is no way a girl like Allison means what you might mean by "looking forward to it being just the two of us." 

Allison likes Cameron--what she's seen of him, so far. Her first day at college, when she was wondering whether she'd have friends, he invited her to a party. He was the one who passed around the marijuana joints. Allison passed the box on the first time; the second time she took a puff but, if she inhaled, it didn't have an effect on her. The story doesn't make clear whether marijuana, or smoking it, is legal in their State. (This may be because it's a reminiscence of a time when older people thought one puff was going to drag a person down into heroin addiction by the end of the school term and a horrible death alone in an alley within two years. Marijuana itself does not have that effect, but the idea that you need drugs to enjoy a party can have it, so teenagers beware.) In any case, although she's a Christian and reads the Bible often, Allison likes the way Cameron looks, appreciates that he invited her to the party and has talked to her during the next six weeks, and is interested in him enough to want to see whether he's husband material. That's it. That's all. She's looking for a "boyfriend" in the legitimate sense of the word--one of the people she's getting to know, the crowd from which her lifelong friends are likely to come, who happens to be male. 

There is, of course, a "guy culture" that tells boys like Cameron that they can expect to start making babies at this stage of acquaintance. This is false. If you are a good "boyfriend" to a girl who's going to be worth marrying, in college, at the end of a year of lunch and campus cultural events together, you MIGHT get to meet her family. If that happens, congratulations, you're on the list of prospects she and her parents can keep an eye on while you make your start in life and show whether you really are breeding stock. They may love you for the promising youth that you are, but baby-making starts after the wedding, which can reasonably be expected to occur after you're twenty-five.

Cameron, despite his looks and charm, is not husband material. At least, not for Allison. As soon as they're alone together, he wants to crawl into the back seat. There was a time when young women's prospects in life were poor enough that many of them went out on date after date, haggling about their boundaries and letting young men feel that premarital baby-making merely required them to "touch the bases" of haggling for just a little "progress" in that direction every weekend. Today, thank God and the feminist movement, young women feel free to admit that that's no fun. Allison just says no. No haggling. No groping. No second date for Cameron.

The story hints that if Cameron had been man enough to apologize properly ("I'm sorry I acted stupid and ruined our first date. I've watched too many old movies. Please give me a chance to show that I can behave like a decent human being"), Allison might have given him a second date. That would probably have been a mistake. 

Anyway this is a happy story, though it's not particularly well told. Allison says yes to life, which means no to Cameron, and lives happily ever after. We're not told about her other dates, though presumably she has some; we're told that she graduates from college and goes to work in her chosen field. 

Stories like this one used to be tabooed by the publishing industry. They still encounter prejudice; Curtis obviously didn't find a publisher willing to work with this story and may not have found the editor I think it needs. I think it's awkwardly paced, with three out of six chapters detailing Allison's first day on campus, her selection of wall art making it obvious that she belongs to Generation X rather than being "millennial," and the other half of the e-book consisting of the bad first date, the day after, and the rest of Allison's college career. The slow beginning seems to belong in a novel that would go on to show how Allison's character develops through work and social life, her friends, her community, temptations to pad time and expense reports or boost a friend's career at a more deserving person's expense, all the while she gets better acquainted with the two or three dozen other attractive men in her college social circle, and on through the inevitable disappointment with some aspects of her dream job and how she perseveres, until she meets a man who is at least worth showing to her parents, marries him, is inevitably disappointed, perseveres, has a baby, is inevitably disappointed, perseveres, and lives happily ever after...but this e-book is, after all, called Moment of Truth. It's about the moment when Allison turns back off the wrong road onto the road that leads to happily-ever-after. That being the case, the first three chapters could have been condensed into one. 

Still, there need to be more books like this one. Happy endings can be about staying true to one's beliefs, rather than about the first physical attraction a character feels being "romance." Years ago, novels like Women and Thomas Harrow were lauded for depicting how a rich, desirable man pursued happiness by not marrying any of the unsatisfactory women who threw themselves at him. How brave and honest John Marquand was to reject the fallacy of pop-culture romance! Well, no points for guessing--a desirable woman's pursuit of happiness may also involve saying no to unsatisfactory men. This brave, honest e-book deserves reading.