Antonia Lucia Labella has two secrets: at fifteen, she's still waiting for her first kiss, and she wants to be a saint. An official one. Seem strange? Well, to Antonia, saints are royalty, and she wants her chance at being a princess. All her life she's kept company with these kings and queens of small favors, knowing exactly whom to pray to on every occasion. Unfortunately, the two events Antonia's prayed for seem equally unlikely to happen. It's not for lack of trying. For how long has she been hoping to gain the attention of the love of her life – the tall, dark, and so good-looking Andy Rotellini? Too long to mention. And every month for the last eight years, Antonia has sent a petition to the Vatican proposing a new patron saint and bravely offering herself for the post. So what if she's not dead?
But as Antonia learns, in matters of the heart and sainthood, things are about as straightforward as wound-up linguini, and sometimes you need to recognize the signs.
Antonia Lucia Labella has two secrets: at fifteen, she's still waiting for her first kiss, and she wants to be a saint. An official one. Seem strange? Well, to Antonia, saints are royalty, and she wants her chance at being a princess. All her life she's kept company with these kings and queens of small favors, knowing exactly whom to pray to on every occasion. Unfortunately, the two events Antonia's prayed for seem equally unlikely to happen. It's not for lack of trying. For how long has she been hoping to gain the attention of the love of her life – the tall, dark, and so good-looking Andy Rotellini? Too long to mention. And every month for the last eight years, Antonia has sent a petition to the Vatican proposing a new patron saint and bravely offering herself for the post. So what if she's not dead?
But as Antonia learns, in matters of the heart and sainthood, things are about as straightforward as wound-up linguini, and sometimes you need to recognize the signs.
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Overview
Antonia Lucia Labella has two secrets: at fifteen, she's still waiting for her first kiss, and she wants to be a saint. An official one. Seem strange? Well, to Antonia, saints are royalty, and she wants her chance at being a princess. All her life she's kept company with these kings and queens of small favors, knowing exactly whom to pray to on every occasion. Unfortunately, the two events Antonia's prayed for seem equally unlikely to happen. It's not for lack of trying. For how long has she been hoping to gain the attention of the love of her life – the tall, dark, and so good-looking Andy Rotellini? Too long to mention. And every month for the last eight years, Antonia has sent a petition to the Vatican proposing a new patron saint and bravely offering herself for the post. So what if she's not dead?
But as Antonia learns, in matters of the heart and sainthood, things are about as straightforward as wound-up linguini, and sometimes you need to recognize the signs.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781429930543 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
Publication date: | 08/17/2010 |
Sold by: | Macmillan |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 280 |
Lexile: | 970L (what's this?) |
File size: | 265 KB |
Age Range: | 12 - 18 Years |
About the Author
DONNA FREITAS has been a professor at Boston University and at Hofstra in New York. She is currently splitting her time between Barcelona and New York and writing full time.
Donna Freitas is an author of books for both teens and adults. Her nonfiction books for adults include, most recently, Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America’s College Campuses (Oxford), based on a national study about the influence of sexuality and romantic relationships on the spiritual identities of America’s college students. She is also a devoted fan of the celebrated British children’s author Philip Pullman, and her book about the religious and ethical dimensions of his award-winning trilogy Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman’s Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials (Jossey-Bass/Wiley) hit the bookshelves in the middle of a major, national controversy about the release of the trilogy’s first movie installment.
Much of her writing, teaching, and lecturing centers around struggles of belonging and alienation with regard to faith, particularly among young adults and especially with regard to young women. She loves to ask Big Questions (Why are we here anyway?) and delights in discovering the many possible forums in which to dabble with the stuff of faith, religion, spirituality, and gender.
A regular contributor to The Washington Post/Newsweek’s online panel “On Faith,” the religion webzine Beliefnet, and Publishers Weekly, she has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Christian Century, and School Library Journal, and she has appeared as a commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered. Her books also include Becoming a Goddess of Inner Poise: Spirituality for the Bridget Jones in All of Us and Save the Date: A Spirituality of Dating, Love, Dinner&the Divine.
Born in Rhode Island, Donna received her B.A. in philosophy and Spanish from Georgetown University and her Ph.D. in religion from Catholic University. She has been a professor at Boston University and at Hofstra in New York. She is currently splitting her time between Barcelona and New York and writing full time. Donna describes herself as an ardent feminist, a Catholic despite it all, an intense intellectual, and a fashion devotee all rolled into one.
Read an Excerpt
The Possibilities of Sainthood
By Donna Freitas
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2008 Donna FreitasAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-3054-3
CHAPTER 1
I pray to St. Sebastian About Gym Class and Thank God I'm Not Named After the Patron Saint of Snakebites
I gazed up at the familiar boy. A golden aura surrounds his beautiful, muscular body, arrows poking into him from every direction.
Poor saint, I thought to myself. I hope it doesn't hurt.
Sebastian's stare was piercing, as if he were looking right through me. As if his gaze were another arrow pointed my way.
I closed my eyes but the image stayed. It should. The picture of St. Sebastian had been hanging on the wall in our living room for as long as I could remember, right near the old-fashioned record player my mother listened to when she was dusting all the other saint statues and figurines, her daily tribute to the men and women who watch over us. Occasionally I'd come home from school and Mom would be belting out "That's Amore" or "Volare" in her just-off-the-boat Italian accent. I had to be careful not to bring anyone up to the apartment when I heard music playing, or they might think she was crazy. She's a character, my mother.
But then, all Catholics are a weird bunch. Especially the Italian ones.
I opened my eyes and read quietly from my Saint Diary.
Dear St. Sebastian:
O Patron Saint of Athletes, please help me not look stupid tomorrow in gym class when we play soccer even though I am not very fast, kick the ball in the wrong direction occasionally, and sometimes forget which team I'm on. And I promise I won't sit down out on the field this time if they make me play defense again and I get bored. Ideally, I'd like to play more like Hilary, our star soccer player (even though she is named after the Patron Saint of Snakebites). But if I can't be as good as Hilary, I'll settle for just not getting picked last. And don't forget about Mrs. Bevalaqua. It would be really great if her arthritis got better so she could walk again. Thank you, St. Sebastian, for your intercession in these matters.
I lit the worn-down pillar candle beneath sexy Sebastian and gave him a longing look, as if I could will him to step out of his frame. It was right about then that my moment alone with the half-naked, holy babe was interrupted.
"Time to get ready for bed, Antonia! It's getting late and you have school tomorrow," Mom yelled from the kitchen.
"I'm praying," I called back, my voice all "Please don't interrupt my saint time," aware that the surest way into whatever flexibility my mother could offer was through piety.
"Five more minutes, then!"
I started to close my diary when I noticed that the corner of my St. Anthony mass card was peeling. I smoothed the edge gently, lovingly, as if I were brushing the cheek of Andy Rotellini, the boy I'd been in love with since the summer before ninth grade. A crease was beginning to mark the murky blue sky surrounding Anthony, dark against the gleam of his halo. I dipped my pinkie into the pool of hot wax around the candlewick and placed a tiny drop on the corner of the card, refastening it to the page. Below St. Anthony's image was a pocket made of thick, red linen paper, stuffed with devotions and prayers, some on random scraps of this and that, others scribbled on colorful Post-its. Anthony's page had more devotions than any other saint in my diary.
My Saint Diaries were my most sacred possessions.
"I'm praying, Mommy," said a voice behind me, singsong and catty, sending a shiver up my spine. Not the scary sort of shiver or even the good kind, but the "blech" kind you felt when you met up with something disgusting. "I'm such a good little holier-than-thou girl, Mommy," the voice went on, its nasal tone like nails against a chalkboard.
"Veronica," I said, whirling around to face my cousin — who also starred as the evil nemesis in my life, not to be overly melodramatic or anything, because it is totally true. Veronica is eVil with a capital V. I tucked my Saint Diary behind me, making sure it was hidden.
Veronica was at the apartment trying to learn some of the Italian cookie recipes from my mother because her mother, my aunt Silvia, was determined that at least one of her three daughters would turn out to be a kitchen natural and grow up to usurp my mother at the family store. I'd thought I could successfully avoid Veronica's visit, but I was wrong. My blood began to boil, but I took comfort in the fact that Veronica's outfit was way too tight and her hair was so teased and sprayed that she was the caricature of a Rhode Island Mall Rat. "Remember when you used to be a nice person and people like me could actually stand to be around you?" I asked, once I knew my temper was in check.
"Remember when you used to not be such a total baby?" Sarcasm oozed from Veronica's voice. Something — maybe almond paste? — was smeared down the side of her face. I bet she squeezed it straight from the tube into her mouth like a greedy glutton. "You and your mother think you're so high and mighty."
"Veronica ..." my mother was calling. "Veronica? If you are not here to watch, you are never going to learn how to fold these egg whites into the batter properly ... Yoohoo! Where are you?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming, Auntie," she said, rolling her eyes and disappearing back down the hall. Her footsteps thudded against the wood floor. Thud. Thud.
My cousin, the elephant.
As soon as Veronica was gone, the tension disappeared from my body. I grabbed my Saint Diary from where I'd stashed it and sighed with relief.
My Saint Diaries were also my most secret possessions.
Each year on my birthday, February 14, St. Valentine's Day, I began a new volume, fixing different colored pockets onto the pages of a thick book, compiling a section marked "Notes" for my new saint ideas (like a Patron Saint of Homework or a Patron Saint of Notice — as in "Notice me, please, Andy Rotellini!"). Most important of all, I chose which out of the many thousands of official saints to venerate during the year. Tradition, my tradition, dictated that St. Anthony of Padua, the Patron Saint for Lost Things, got page number one. Always.
Volume 8, the record of my fifteenth year, was rose red, my favorite color.
In the back was a section for the occasional, precious response letter from the Vatican. (Really they were rejection letters, but I liked to think of them as responses because that sounded less depressing.) I held on to these to remind myself that at least they knew I existed. For the hope that one day, I might just get through to them.
You know, The Vatican People.
Any day now, the news would arrive. My Patron Saint of Figs proposal was a winner. I could feel it.
"Antonia! Sbrigati!" my mother yelled, shattering this moment of hope with her I'm-getting-angry voice and an Italian command that loosely translated as "Get your butt off to bed immediately and don't tell me you're still praying because I won't buy it this time." Early bedtime somehow applied to me but not my cousin.
I faced Sebastian one last time, the heat of the candle flame warm on my chin. "St. Sebastian," I whispered, gazing into his blue eyes, "if you can help me figure out the saint thing, I'd really appreciate it. It's already been thirteen days since I sent the last letter."
"Antonia Lucia Labella!" (That's "lou-chia," by the way, like the pet.)
"Okay, one more last thing," I said, tempting the full force of Mom's rage, my lips level with Sebastian's now, as if we were about to kiss. "Even though I know that technically in the Catholic church you have to be dead to be a saint, I really don't want to die if you can help it. Fifteen is too young to die."
I blew out the candle. A thin stream of smoke drifted up from the blackened wick, reaching toward heaven, and I wondered if I'd soon follow, joining all those who'd gone before me.
In a manner befitting a saint.
CHAPTER 2My Mother Calls Me a Prostitute, Which Is Code for "Antonia, You Look Sexy Today," and I Ask St. Denis the Beheaded Bishop for Assistance
"Antonia! You are not going out like that!"
"What are you talking about, Mom?" I answered, trying to sound innocent and all. Who me? Have I done something wrong? I was tiptoeing through the front hall hoping to get out the door unnoticed on my way to school.
"Antonia! Don't you dare take another step!"
I looked behind me. Mom was leaning against the doorway between the foyer and the kitchen, staring at my legs, upset as usual about the state of my school uniform. I shoved my hand into my backpack to locate the socks she was going to make me wear despite any protests.
"O Madonna! Your bare legs! I can see so much thigh you may as well not be wearing a skirt!" She was using her it's-the-end-of-the-world voice, her left hand moving spastically as she talked. Her dark, roller-filled hair jiggled like a pile of fresh-made gnocchi on its way to the table, as her head shook with disapproval. "My daughter looks like a puttana! What have I done to deserve this?"
Important Italian Vocab to Note:
Madonna refers to the Madonna, aka, the real virgin, not the "Like a Virgin" Madonna, the famous pop star. It's pronounced "ma-dawn," heavy on the n, drop the last a.
Puttana is Italian for "prostitute" and is known to fly out of my mother's mouth in my direction. I like to think of it as a compliment. You know, my mother's special way of noting out loud that her daughter is looking particularly sexy at the moment.
"Calm down, Ma," I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Every day on my way to school I'd try to sneak out the door in what my best friend Maria and I regarded as coolness of the uniform, that is, as cool as we could possibly make our yellow, green, and white pleated plaid skirt and matching Catholic schoolgirl gear. And every day Mom would tell me I looked like a streetwalker (her favorite English synonym for puttana).
Then we'd argue.
"Are you showing off for the boys, Antonia?" I glanced over my shoulder to find my grandmother in the living room watching me, giggling, swaying in her rocking chair, her tiny body wrapped tight in her old blue bathrobe. Her white frizzed-out hair was styled like she might be auditioning for the part of Einstein's mother.
I felt my face turn red.
"Gram! Sshhh," I pleaded, giving her a meaningful look. "You're not helping." Gram had lived with Mom and me in the apartment above the family store since Dad died when I was seven. She was partly to blame for my saint obsessions. Her bedroom was filled with icons, mass cards, and pillar-candle shrines. A glass-domed porcelain baby Jesus dressed as a king with a big fancy crown and flowing red robes — the Infant of Prague — sat center stage on her bureau. Gram's room was like a shrine.
"And after you find those socks you are going to unroll that skirt until I can't see even an inch of thigh!" Mom stepped toward me as if she was going to do the uniform adjustment herself.
"Ma! Seriously. I'll fix everything when I get to school," I said, but my pleas were futile. She was staring at my waist with the look of a bull about to charge. "Nobody else goes to school in uniform. You should see Veronica and Concetta ..." Concetta was Veronica's sister, the middle child of my wicked trio of cousins. Francesca was the third and the oldest.
"I don't care about your cousins and that is your aunt Silvia's business if she wants to let her daughters leave the house half-naked."
My mother had gone to a Catholic girls' school, too — starting in sixth grade, when her family immigrated from Napoli — and in every picture she's in textbook uniform: sensible brown shoes, kneesocks stretched until the threads are about to snap, plaid skirt lengthened to below the knee, so that bare skin is totally hidden, long-sleeved oxford shirt buttoned up to her chin. My mother always looked perfect and virginal. I might be technically virginal, but that didn't mean I needed to look that way.
All Normal Catholic Schoolgirls had creative ways of sluttifying our pure-as-the-driven-snow required attire.
Catholic Girl's Guide to Uniform Alteration
1. Most important is rolling your skirt so that it is a virtual mini (you keep folding it over at the waistband).
The key to successful skirt rolling is to be sure your Catholic pleated plaid is already hemmed at least two inches above the knee. Otherwise, if you have to fold it over, like, twenty times at the waist, you end up looking as if you've got a serious amount of extra inches around the middle. Not attractive. If you have a mother like mine who insists on skirts at least to the knee, then you have several possible options: get out the ironing board and iron the desired hem, then either tape said hem or carefully safety-pin it all around the bottom, ideally so that none of the pins show through to the front. Why not just pull out a needle and thread and hem it for real? Because you always need to be prepared for emergency hem-letting-down when your mother wonders why your skirt seems so short. If she realizes you illegally hemmed it, getting grounded is almost inevitable.
2. The question of boxer shorts: to wear or not to wear boxer shorts underneath your skirt?
Catholic mothers across the nation hate this trend of girls wearing boxers even more so than the rolling up of the plaid. Preferably, you should buy your own boxers. It's weird to steal from Dad, though some girls do it. I don't know when or who started the boxers craze, but it's been going on for as long as I've been at Catholic school (which is always). To be honest, I don't know why wearing boxers is cool, because sometimes, frankly, it looks kind of bad, but we do it anyway. Still, depending on how much you want the boys to see, boxers are a good preventive measure for the accidental flashing factor.
3. Legs: as bare as possible. Wear socks only when you are made to, and when wearing them, make sure they are scrunched down to the ankles. Never, I repeat, never wear tights.
4. Standard white oxford: ideally two buttons undone and never buttoned all the way to the neck. Cute, tight-fitting tank top underneath for before and after school when you are hanging out in the parking lot.
The tank top allows you to remove the required oxford entirely if you so choose and transform yourself into the ideal sexy Catholic schoolgirl that every Catholic schoolboy wants to go out with. Note: Never ever let your mother or teacher/principal see you in just a tank top or you'll be in trouble for sure.
"In my day, the nuns used to measure our skirts!" My mother waved her right hand as she launched into her familiar uniform lecture. I dropped my backpack onto the dark tile of our foyer. It made a satisfying thump when it hit the floor and I struck my best here-we-go-again pose, which involved some hip-jutting, impatient sighing, and foot-tapping. "We had to kneel down on the floor, and if the hem didn't touch the ground we were sent home."
Oh, the drama.
"Yeah, Ma. I know. You've told me. Like eighty times."
"You don't learn to dress like a respectful Labella girl soon and I'm going to make you kneel down every morning before leaving the house to measure your skirt! You just wait." Her hand buzzed around her like a fly. "If your father were still alive ..."
"Don't even go there, Ma" I said, interrupting, feeling hurt that she would pull the Dad card. "If Dad were around he'd spend more time telling me to have a good day and less time freaking out over stupid things like whether or not I am wearing socks and the exact length of my uniform skirt."
"No respect," she muttered. "You used to be such a nice little girl. What did I do wrong? O Madonna!"
I sat down with a huff in an old wooden chair to put on my green socks. Anything to get Mom off my back and myself out the door. I said a quick prayer to St. Denis, the Patron Saint Against Strife and Headaches, for added assistance (who, incidentally, is usually portrayed holding his head in his hands because he was, well, beheaded, and therefore the perfect poster boy for people worrying about headaches).
"St. Agnes, help this child," my mother rambled on, under her breath. St. Agnes is the Patron Saint of Bodily Purity and Chastity, and one of her favorites.
"Pull. Them. Up. Antonia." Mom didn't like the fact that I'd squished my kneesocks down to my ankles. She was in front of me now with hands on hips, her "Kiss the Cook" apron tied around her middle. Dad gave it to her for Christmas one year. She always wore it. There was a smear of flour on her face, which meant she'd been making pasta. She got up at ungodly hours to make it from scratch.
Time to raise the white flag, I decided, stretching my socks to my knees. I stood up and marched toward the door, hoping to get out without any further assaults on my attire.
I had to give Mom credit on at least one count: despite the psychotic behavior, no one else could make pasta like she did. A few pinches of this, a little bit of that, some flour, eggs, and poof! It was like magic.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas. Copyright © 2008 Donna Freitas. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
TITLE,COPYRIGHT,
DEDICATION,
PART 1: THE PATRON SAINT OF FIGS AND FIG TREES,
CHAPTER 1: I PRAY TO ST. SEBASTIAN ABOUT GYM CLASS AND THANK GOD I'M NOT NAMED AFTER THE PATRON SAINT OF SNAKEBITES,
CHAPTER 2: MY MOTHER CALLS ME A PROSTITUTE, WHICH IS CODE FOR "ANTONIA, YOU LOOK SEXY TODAY," AND I ASK ST. DENIS THE BEHEADED BISHOP FOR ASSISTANCE,
CHAPTER 3: I RUN INTO MICHAEL, THE PSEUDO-ARCHANGEL, WHO IS SO NOT ANGELIC,
CHAPTER 4: SISTER NOELLA (POSSIBLY A SECRET EMISSARY FROM THE VATICAN) TEACHES BIOLOGY WHILE MARIA AND I PASS NOTES,
CHAPTER 5: I GET READY FOR MY MONDAY AFTERNOON SHIFT AND REMINISCE ABOUT THE FIRST TIME I MET MICHAEL,
CHAPTER 6: THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, ANDY ROTELLINI, VISITS THE STORE AND I AM WITNESS TO A MAJOR MIRACLE,
CHAPTER 7: ANDY IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, AND SEVEN ANGELS GUARD US FROM PREDATORY BOYS IN THE HA–BISHOP FRANCIS PARKING LOT,
CHAPTER 8: SISTER MARY MARGARET FAILS TO TEACH US ANYTHING, AND VERONICA AND I HAVE A PUBLIC SPAT,
CHAPTER 9: I DRAG LILA INTO THE DREARY LIBRARY STACKS AND DETERMINE THAT I NEED TO START WEARING A BRA ON THE ROAD TO SAINTHOOD,
CHAPTER 10: MARIA AND I GOSSIP AT THE ICE RINK, AND SHE HANDS MY INNOCENCE TO MICHAEL IN EXCHANGE FOR SOME ALONE-TIME WITH JOHN,
CHAPTER 11: MICHAEL DRIVES ME HOME AND WE SHARE A MOMENT,
CHAPTER 12: I WORRY ABOUT MY FIG PROPOSAL, AND "THE ANTI-ANGEL" PAYS ME A VISIT,
CHAPTER 13: I PRAY TO ST. WALBURGA ABOUT THE FIG-TREE BURYING AND LOSE THE POWER OF SPEECH DURING ANDY'S FIRST SHIFT AT THE MARKET,
CHAPTER 14: IT'S RAINING MEN WHILE MARIA AND I ARE BUSY PRUNING,
CHAPTER 15: I CONFRONT MY MOTHER ABOUT HER NONEXISTENT DATING LIFE AND I EXPERIENCE TRAGIC VATICAN REJECTION,
PART 2: THE PATRON SAINT OF PEOPLE WHO MAKE PASTA,
CHAPTER 16: MOM, GRAM, AND I PREPARE FOR THE FEAST OF ST. LUCIA, AND I PRAY TO ST. AUGUSTINE, THE SAINT WHO ONCE LOVED SEX, ABOUT ANDY,
CHAPTER 17: THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPENS,
CHAPTER 18: I DRAFT AN EMERGENCY SAINT PROPOSAL, AND GET IN GRAM'S CAR, RISKING LIFE AND LIMB,
CHAPTER 19: MARIA AND I DEBRIEF "THE UNTHINKABLE" AND SHE TELLS ME HER "OTHER IDEAS",
CHAPTER 20: I TRY NOT TO CATCH ON FIRE WHILE I PASS OUT COOKIES FOR THE FEAST OF ST. LUCIA,
CHAPTER 21: I CONFRONT AN UNINVITED GUEST IN MY ROOM, VERONICA GETS IN THE WAY, AND CATHOLICS THE WORLD OVER RECEIVE SHOCKING NEWS,
CHAPTER 22: WE EAGERLY AWAIT OUR NEW HOLY FATHER,
PART 3: THE PATRON SAINT OF FIRST KISSES AND KISSING,
CHAPTER 23: MARIA AND I MAKE OURSELVES LOOK IRRESISTIBLE, AND SHE TRIES TO CONVINCE ME OF WHAT MY HEART SHOULD ALREADY KNOW,
CHAPTER 24: MY HEART GOES PITTER-PATTER AND I FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO GET WEAK IN THE KNEES,
CHAPTER 25: !!!!!! (YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO READ TO FIND OUT),
CHAPTER 26: MY MOTHER AND I PERSONALLY EXPERIENCE ALL OF THE TOP FIVE WAYS ITALIANS EXPRESS LOVE IN ONE SITTING,
CHAPTER 27: I LEARN SURPRISING NEWS ABOUT MY REPUTATION AND I HOPE THAT THE SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH, AND MAYBE EVEN THE FIFTH TIME IS THE CHARM,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
1. Antonia's two main aspirations are to become the first living saint and to get her first kiss from the right boy. On the surface, these goals seem very different, but do they have anything in common? What are your aspirations?
2. Antonia thinks that at fifteen she might be the only girl on the planet who hasn't had her first kiss. Do you think there are lots of girls this age who haven't had a first kiss yet? What about boys this age? Why? Why not?
3. If you were a patron saint, what would your specialization be and why?
4. In the beginning of the book, Antonia introduces her cousin Veronica as the "evil nemesis" in her life (p. 8). Does Antonia let her feelings for Veronica affect her actions? How? Do you have someone like Veronica in your life?
5. Antonia also has a best friend, Maria Romano. What makes Maria a great friend? How does she help Antonia reach her two goals?
6. Andy Rotellini and Michael McGinnis are the two boys in Antonia's life. Do they share any characteristics? What are their good points and bad points? How does Antonia decide which boy is right for her?
7. If you were Antonia, which boy would you have chosen in the end? Why?
8. Discuss Antonia's desire to be the Patron Saint of the First Kiss and Kissing and the fact that it was her kiss on Mrs. Bevalaqua's cheek that seemed to precipitate Mrs. B.'s miraculous recovery (p. 62). Do you think this is coincidence or are these aspects of the story linked?
9. Between Antonia's strict mother, lenient Grandmother, and her aunts and cousins, family is really important in Antonia's life. What do you think of the different members of Antonia's family? Are any of them like members of your family? If they are very different, how so?
10. For much of the story, Antonia rebels against her mother. What are some of the ways she enacts this rebellion? How do she and her mother come to terms with their differences in the end? Do you ever rebel against your parents or one parent more than another? When and in what circumstances do you feel like you want to rebel and why?
11. Antonia comes from an immigrant family, and her Italian heritage shapes so much of who she is, who her family is, and even her community and neighborhood. What impression do you get about being Italian from Antonia's story? About being from a recently immigrated family?
12. Take a look at "To Become a Saint You Must Complete the Following" (p. 37). What are the possibilities of sainthood for Antonia?