Riley quietly left church a year ago when she realized there was no place for a bi girl in her congregation. But it wasn’t until the pastor shunned her older sister for getting an abortion that she really wanted to burn it all down.

It’s just her luck, then, that she’s sent to the principal’s office for slapping a girl talking smack about her sister—and in order to avoid suspension, she has to spend spring break at church camp. The only saving grace is that she’ll be there with her best friend, Julia. Even if Julia’s dad is the pastor. And he’s in charge of camp. But Riley won’t let a technicality like “repenting” get in the way of her true mission. Instead of spending the week embracing the seven heavenly virtues, she decides to commit all seven deadly sins. If she can show the other campers that sometimes being a little bad is for the greater good, she could start a righteous revolution! What could possibly go wrong? Aside from falling for the pastor’s daughter . . .

First off, this book has a great sense of humor. Not only from the title, but from the chapter titles as well. Which is good because the protagonist, Riley oscillates between anger, and humor, or snark to be more accurate, and the humor makes her more palatable.

Not that she doesn’t have something to be angry about with the treatment of her older sister, Hannah. Literally called out and shunned by their church, Riley is a good sister who cares to stand up for Hannah, and against hypocrisy, but there is a little more to it than that.

I think readers will figure out pretty quickly that the source of Riley’s anger is not just the church’s hypocrisy about her sister, but their homophobic attitudes. While she doesn’t hide her bisexuality exactly, she knows being out and proud about it will make people look at her differently. Make her ashamed, and she hates that. They’ve already ruined her relationship with God, and so she lashes out former friends in a way of hurting them first.

It was interesting to see Riley grapple with religion, and what it means to people. It has been ruined for her, but there are some bright spots as she talks t others and realize how so much of the shunning stems from people’s fear of being shunned too. Which only makes her more determined to expose the Pastor as a hypocrite and break the idolatrous hold he has over the town.

At points the Pastor seems too villainous, then again, I don’t live in the deep South so maybe pastors are just like that. Other characters are given a decent amount of depth as part of Riley’s growth is learning that not everyone is as shitty as they first appear. Hannah gets the best moment with their sister-sister talks that she doesn’t need a defender as much as Riley seems to think.

As for Riley’s relationship with Julia, eh. I know most YAs need romance on the side, but I wasn’t feeling it. Julia is so repressed and religious it’s hard for me to believe that she won’t need more time to be comfortable with being a lesbian. And I’m not sure Riley would have the patience to deal with that especially with how negatively she feels about Julia’s father, and religion in general. The big gesture was great, but it felt more like a Maybe Ever After, not HEA. I think I would have liked it more if it focused as a coming of age, teen exploration of what religion means for her rather than the rom-com it was promoted.

3 stars.