The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers

Although I usually favor nonfiction books, I saw this book reviewed in World magazine, and ended up buying it on my Nook.  I was not sorry.  This was a very good book that kept me up late at night, and got me up early in the morning before my children woke up!

Dynah Carey, the main character, seems to have it all.  A doted on only child, she is attending a Christian University in another state from her parents.  She meets a young man who is training to be a pastor, and they are soon engaged.  She has good moral character, is a virgin and both plan to keep it that way until they are married.  She has a job she at a nursing home where she loves the residents, and she has many good friends.

All that changes one night when her car is in the shop, and she walks to the bus stop after work.  A car approaches and a man leans out and asks her how to get to the university.  Wary, she stands back and gives him direction.  He asks her to get in and ride the short distance with him and help him find it.  Here I found one fault with the book, Dynah lies and tells him she is meeting a friend at the bus stop, pointing to someone she has never met who is waiting there.  The man drives away, but when Dynah gets off the bus at the university, she sees the man's car parked out front.  Seeing it is empty, she is relieved, but not for long.  The man is waiting for her in the shadows, and he jumps out, grabs her in, and rapes her before the police can respond to frantic calls of screaming coming from the woods.

Dynah is taken to the hospital where her cuts and bruises are treated and a rape exam is done.  She is offered the "morning after pill" but being pro life, she refuses.  The doctor admits the chances of becoming pregnant is small, but he presses her to take the medication, and when she still refuses, she is told she can still take it the next day.

Dynah, traumatized, spends the next few weeks hiding in her dorm room, her books and notes brought to her  by compassionate friends and teachers.  She does not tell her parents what has happened to her because she doesn't want to worry them, and she hopes to forget it and move on.

But in time, her room mate suggests she take a pregnancy test because of her continual upset stomach.  She does, and her worst fears come to life, Dynah is pregnant.

As the news of the pregnancy comes out, reaction of friends and family is swift and hard.  Her "Christian" fiance sees her as defiled, his own reputation could be tarnished, and they break up. She is kicked out of the "Christian" university she attends.  Going home, her father insists that her mother take her to an abortion clinic, even though Dynah is not sure that's what she wants.  Secrets of people very close to her are slowly revealed.  And Dynah's Christian testimony changes hearts.

This is a good book, and I even let my 15 year old daughter read it because the subject is dealt with carefully, and with a strong Christian ethic.