“Abstinence is really a gateway for Mr. Perrotta to tell a much bigger and more complex story about religious identity in America. … [A] deeply moving story of a man and a woman who see each other on opposite sides of a religious divide.”

—The Wall Street Journal

“With abstinence programs and disputes over what can be taught in schools regularly making the front page, The Abstinence Teacher hits on prominent social fault lines. This has become something of a hallmark for Mr. Perrotta, who has developed a knack for combining hot-button cultural themes with flawed and complicated characters. … While his stories bear the sheen of satire, they are actually sharp though compassionate investigations of human relationships. They can also be very funny.”

—People Magazine (four stars)

“A soul-searching comedy.”

—USA Today

“A sad-funny-touching story that looks at the frustrations and perils of life in suburbia through darkly tinted, not rose-colored, glasses … pitch perfect ear for dialogue … moments of genuine hilarity… as readable as anything Mr. Perrotta has written, thanks to his easy, conversational prose.”

—The New York Times

“Fifty years after John Cheever turned a comic eye toward New England’s Wapshot Clan, Tom Perrotta reigns as a mischievous bard of the ’burbs for the twenty-first century. … Perrotta is an acute observer of social mores among the affluent middle class.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“Perrotta’s balance of humor and pathos has no equal; he’s naughty and nice … he brings this world to life with a few strokes. He never condescends to modern suburbia—instead he mucks around its corners, opens closets, and reveals oddball secrets.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Confusion and regret are as much the subjects here as religious controversy. Ruefully humorous and tenderly understanding of human folly: the most mature, accomplished work yet from this deservedly bestselling author.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“In his timely suburban satire, Tom Perrotta implores: Let’s talk about sex … education. He resists giving firm answers to the thorny moral questions lurking in his material.”

—Vogue

“For Tom Perrotta, suburbia is a place in which the rift between red and blue states is enacted on a single verdant, erotically charged battlefield … Perrotta finds entertainingly scabrous material in this setup.”

—Elle

“The comic tone is there in numerous laugh-out-loud moments, but Perrotta’s writing displays wisdom, too. … His books combine profound ideas and readability in a way not often seen.”

—The Vancouver Sun

“Over the course of five novels and a collection of short stories, Tom Perrotta has laid claim to the prime real estate of upwardly mobile suburbia, hilariously probing its leafy, soccer-obsessed, McMansion-lined streets. … [G]enerous, amusing, shocking, thought provoking, and more than a little familiar.”

—The Miami Herald

“The Abstinence Teacher is certainly Perrotta’s most sensitive novel to date … tender, witty, and wise.”

—The Washington Post Book World

“A startlingly relevant and stunningly perceptive examination of the evangelical takeover of American exurbia … a hilarious and tender story about faith, divorce, and parenthood that also manages to contain our panoramic drama in miniature.”

—Men’s Vogue

“Eloquently written, Perrotta hits a chord by giving readers a riveting look at the angst and sexual tension that can polarize people as they struggle to weigh their personal wants with societal standards. … Perrotta weaves a masterful satire that is sure to make readers stop and think.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“Undeniable power … Perrotta—like satirists since ancient Rome—attacks excess, hypocrisy, and intolerance wherever he finds them. … His two souls, lost in confusion, reach out in the darkness. What they find surprises them both.”

—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Perrotta spins another perceptive take on modern life with this strong novel … Perrotta’s observations are at all times unsparing.”

—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“What keeps the book from getting too heavy-handed, besides the sharply written humor, is the fact that Perrotta makes his evangelical Christian protagonist less of a zealot than the atheist … his characters are older and have had the shine rubbed off them. As a result, they’re ultimately more satisfying to be around.”

—The Christian Science Monitor

“Perrotta, as always, is deft and sure with his satire … Perrotta still manages the incipient romance with charm and humor.”

—Daily News

“The novel is wicked and witty yet infused with compassion for the characters.”

—The Columbus Dispatch

“Perrotta, who proved himself adept at reconciling dichotomies in the smart novel Election and Little Children, its deeper, darker successor, gets this unlikely couple together with maximum intelligence, minimum melodrama, and a sharp, funny sense of irony. … It’s also very tartly written.”

—The Denver Post