A lot of the stuff I read by homeschool alumni is poignant, rage-inducing, eye-opening, jaw-dropping, and quite often terrifying. These kids were raised in the straitjacket of extreme Christian fundamentalism, subjected to educational malpractice, threatened with hellfire and damnation, raised with an extreme emphasis on gender roles and chastity, indoctrinated for decades. Yet they still managed to emerge with sharp minds, a willingness to question, and the ability to share their journeys. They have my undying respect. They’re amazing people.

But this is the first time one of them has had me nearly peeing myself with laughter in the wee hours of the morning.

I downloaded Matthew Pierce’s Homeschool Sex Machine: Babes, Bible Quiz, and the Clinton Years

because I needed a bit of easy-but-related-to-current-project reading at bedtime. But mostly, I did it because of the title. I mean, we’re talking about someone raised in the purity culture, folks. You cannot even imagine how jarring the idea of someone raised to be pure and virginal, not even supposed to date or kiss until marriage, being a sex machine is. Also, I’d been seeing alumni reviews here and there, which were all positive, and the thing was $2.99, and so it seemed a safe bet.

Don’t make that bet if you’re still recovering from abdominal surgery, because you’ll bust your stitches.

Now, you may have heard this of this book being blacklisted by some Christian sites. This is because they can’t stand the idea of sex, and also, there are bosoms. (I suspect those declining to carry this book are the same sorts who flipped their shit when they got a brief sex scene at the beginning of The Wedding Party. Seriously, read the one-star reviews – they’re hysterical.)

I do have to warn you: there are bosoms. And sex appeal. And *gasp* dancing.

Matthew Pierce has a cutting sense of humor, which he most often uses to undercut himself. Take learning the clarinet, for example: He talks about being placed “in the class that wore red turtlenecks, which was probably the class for prodigies.” Now, woodwinds weren’t quite what he’d had in mind when his parents said they were putting him in a band. He’d expected more rock star than orchestra. But it went well:

The entire class would soon bear witness to my meteoric rise, as I soared to the position of fifth chair clarinet in a section of six clarinets.

Yep. Meteoric, indeed. This former member of the concert choir that often performed with the high school orchestra larfed and larfed.

But you came here for the sex machine part, didn’t you? Never fear! There’s plenty of salacious detail as Matthew makes us witnesses to his stellar career as a sex machine. He didn’t even begin as a homeschool one: his first assignation was as a public school student. Alas, he didn’t save his first kiss for marriage, but gave it away willy-nilly to the luscious cheek of a kindergarten classmate – and promptly passed out from the magnitude of it. With such a promising beginning, you know that homeschool doesn’t put the brakes on this sex machine. His mad Bible knowledge, his amazing ability with the clarinet, and his gift for crushing opposing teams at Bible Quiz take him from one torrid affair to another. The fact they were all in his head and rated GA does nothing to detract from our admiration. He is the James Bond of the homeschool circuit.

Marvel as he resists the pressure of mother, siblings, and peers, and avoids being “knighted into purposeful singlehood.” Which is good, because it would have been a shame to waste an opportunity to use all the Xian pick-up lines he’d been composing during the purity lecture.

Admire his determination and cunning as he uses his grocery store earnings to escape homeschool and attend a Christian private school, and his extraordinary height to join their basketball team – all for a girl. Hijinks, of course, ensue.

Feel your heart melt as he attends a prom. Of sorts. No dancing, because that is a heathen pleasure denied to good Christian teens.

Instead, CHS was hosting a Spring Banquet. There was to be no cleavage (thanks, Presbyterians), no touching, no dancing (thanks, Baptists), and essentially no fun of any kind. And just to make sure we left the event edified, the school had booked a Christian performance artist to act out the Book of Jonah is a one-man play.

At the after party, he asks a strict Baptist what dancing is, and the climax comes as the most eligible bachelor on campus drags him out to dance with destiny. Well, with Sporty, the love of his life, the woman of his dreams, the lady he had moved heaven and earth and spent his money on private school for. Since he had to ask a strict Baptist what dancing is, and had to be manhandled onto the dance floor by his chief romantic rival, you can imagine how odd the conclusion is.

The fact that Matthew Pierce survived those strictly-repressed and terribly sheltered years with a wicked-sharp sense of humor and a healthy outlook on love, I put down to the power of his Inner Romeo.

You’ll come out of this book with aching ribs, a different view of the cloistered homeschool world, and a huge measure of affection for a narrator you know is unreliable, but is always all heart. And sometimes flowers.