*Full disclosure this book was sent to me for free as part of a bookstagram tour but all opinions are my own and aren't influenced by this.*
Young, dumb and naive by Alicia Caldwell Henderson is a coming of age story of 14-year-old Azerica Christian who decides that now she’s going into high school it’s time to take her life back and become the popular girl she always wanted to be even if that means hanging out with older jocks from school and leaving her bible study life behind in a rush to grow up.
I'm always happy to read a diverse book and find it enlightening to see how other people do things in their everyday lives, for me it's one of the things I enjoy most about reading and for this book I got to read from the POV of not only a different ethnic group from my own but also a religious christian background. Specifically I thought it was interesting to see how much of an impact religion had on all the characters decisions throughout and how it was incorporated into their lives especially Devin who is arguably the most religious person in the book. It was also interesting to see how the non religious people interacted with prayer and the talk of religion as they'd been brought up to believe but strayed away from that for different reasons.
The realistic and heavier topics that the book covered, like drugs, single mothers, prison and financial trouble were interesting to read about as they allowed for a new perspective on themes that are easy to misjudge and lean into stereotypes for. They were written about with grace and respect so that the real life problems don't feel cheap and overused but instead honoured and well discussed.
I enjoyed the different point of views which were shown throughout although I wasn't expecting it as I had thought it would only be Azerica's story. Seeing life through different characters eyes allowed me to understand their actions and thoughts which I'm always a sucker for especially when characters do questionable things like in this book. Candace, Azerica's mum, got on my nerves - constantly blaming her problems on everyone else although this is a huge flaw in her character and not the writing. Also her dialogue sometimes felt over the top with things like ""I'm not ruining your life dear, I control it"" and "if she ruined her life it would be her mother's fault again, with or without prayer" which personally I couldn't see someone saying in an everyday situation.
There was a good contrast between characters personalities and I believed a whole spectrum of people were represented well with their own personal 'coming of age' arc where they tried to find themselves and sort problems in their lives. Although this is true to a certain extent this got in the way of the narrative as instead of focusing on a few characters it told the back stories of every single person we met even if they weren't vital to the story and were only there to make up the numbers on the cheerleading and football teams. I can understand why it was done; to make even the non-vital characters seem well-rounded but it got confusing to be introduced to so many characters so in-depth in such a short space of time.
For me the ending seemed almost incomplete because it ends on a cliff hanger that I could almost imagine would be the end of an episode, making the narrative feel like it was split at the wrong point for the next book to start. I would have liked to see more from Azerica and find out if she was alright after the events of the book. Because of this it seemed as though the characters didn't arc and stayed stagnant through the book and didn't grow after everything because they didn't have time before the book was over.
Overall even with its realistic and slightly heavier topics it was a quick easy read that perfectly showed a young girl trying to grow up to fast. I would recommend to anyone that's willing to read about different cultures and is looking for a quick read to pick up.