My Name is Chloe, is about a talented 15 year old singer songwriter who avoids the preppy types at school aiming for a more grungy look. She starts a band with two friends, Laura who is a Christian and Allie who is interested in Wiccan witchcraft. In time, both Chloe and Allie come to faith. Caitlin (from the Caitlin series) encourages her to read the bible, just the red letter words of Jesus, so she can be challenged by what he says. In the Caitlin series, every diary entry finished with a written prayer. In this series, each entry finished with a poem or lyrics that Chloe has written to sum up her feelings, in time they are often prayers too, and there is a lot of creativity contained here. Again, like the Caitlin series, there is a real honesty about teenage life, including how she feels about her parents, having friends who do drugs and bullying by other girls. In Sold Out there are problems when Laura’s pastor starts questioning Chloe and accusing her of not being Christ centred, and of leading Laura astray. In time though, they come to the attention of a Christian music agency and end up being signed as a band. A trio of sixteen year old girls are now going on tour as Christian musicians.
Road Trip is the account of the touring. They make it big early on and become good friends with the band they open for, Iron Cross, a group of young men who currently top the music charts. This book has another reference (like the Caitlin series) to Josh Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye, it’s almost like Carlson is paid to promote his stuff. Chloe also buys a new bible and starts reading The Message. One band member struggles and ends up taking drugs to help her, which not surprisingly causes major problems for her and the band.
In Face the Music, the band members are now all 17 and balancing the touring life with high school commitments, friends, potential boyfriends, family and fame. Carlson is skilled at showing the ways we still fall into sin, yet how we can continually be saved by grace and desire to live in ways that honour God.
As I found with the Caitlin series, these are solid storylines with Christian influences throughout. You may not agree with it all (eg. the Message, the red letters and Josh Harris), and I noted other hesitations in my first review, but in the end, they are stories that engage young women and help them consider what it can mean to live a life of faith, while facing the realities of the adolescent world. Miss 14 loved this series.
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After these books series, it was the right timing in the set to return to Book 5 of the Caitlin series, I Do. Caitlin is close to finishing college and Josh has just proposed. It’s all very exciting, but still there is the reality of planning a wedding and keeping two sides of the new family happy. I’m sure teen girls would enjoy this, but I don’t need to relieve the days of engagement, and we are party to enough weddings these days for me not to read about it in my fiction choices! So, all fine, and I’m sure fans will find it a suitable end to the Caitlin series.
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