The Anti-Virginity Pact: a hard-hitting young adult contemporary

Preachers’ daughters aren’t supposed to be atheists. 

They’re also not supposed to make pacts to lose their virginity by the end of the year, but high school senior Meredith Beaumont is sick of letting other people tell her who to be.

Spending the last four years as Mute Mare, the girl so shy just thinking about boys could trigger panic attacks, Meredith knows exactly what it’s like to be invisible. But when a vindictive mean girl gets her manicured claws on the anti-virginity pact and spreads it around the school—with Mare’s signature at the bottom—Mare’s not so invisible anymore. She just wishes she was.

Now the girls mutter “slut” as they pass her in the hall, and the boys are lined up to help complete her checklist. When she meets a guy who knows nothing of the pact, their budding romance quickly transforms from a way to get her first time over with to a genuine connection. But when the pact threatens to destroy her new relationship and the fragile foundation of her seemingly perfect family, Mare has to decide what’s more important: fixing her reputation and pleasing her parents, or standing up for the person she wants to be.

The Anti-Virginity Pact is a dark and emotional YA coming of age novel that can be read as a standalone, or the reader can continue with Johanna's friends-to-lovers college romance in The Anti-Relationship Year.

This book is for readers who love: hard hitting young adult contemporary, social anxiety representation, first love, first relationship, healing from religious trauma, mental health representation, set in high school, themes of friendship and bullying.

For fans of: Cynthia Hand, Mindy McGinnis, Amanda Maciel, Jay Asher, Jasmine Warga, Laurie Halse Anderson, Ellen Hopkins, Jennifer Mathieu, Amber Smith, Laura Nowlin, Gayle Forman, and John Green.