Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler (review)

When a strange old lady named Iris comes in to Mina’s work one night and claims to know all about her, seventeen-year-old Mina is a little freaked out. She’s also very busy waiting tables, so she’s distracted enough to say yes when Iris asks Mina to carry a very special child. Indeed, the coming months find the virgin Mina showing all the signs of early pregnancy. Once the pregnancy is confirmed, Mina has supporters (her mother, her best friend, Hannah, her little sister, Grace, and a coworker named Jesse) and detractors (her boyfriend, her father, and her other best friend, Izzy), but she sticks by her story that she has never had sex. Detweiler fully imagines the complications that would ensue from such a situation; the angry disbelief of her father and boyfriend, the implicit faith of her mother and Grace, the unquestioning acceptance of Hannah and Jesse, and Mina’s own wonder at the inexplicable new life growing inside her. Despite public shaming and protests spurred by a website and media attention, her father’s angry withdrawal, and losing her longterm boyfriend, Mina remains remarkably grounded throughout the experience, as if to say that yes, this is happening, but it’s not the only thing that’s happening; she still has her senior year to get through, and a possible budding romance with Jesse to consider. Readers are left in the same dark as Mina herself as to why she was chosen, who Iris is, and what the baby’s destiny will ultimately be, but they will find Mina’s situation compelling and imagine what social relations and inner musings may have been like for her more famous virgin mother counterpart.