Good apple Tales of a Southern evangelical in New York

Passarella, contributing editor at Southern Living, debuts with an amusing but uneven fish-out-of-water memoir. Raised in an evangelical Christian home in Memphis, Tenn., Passarella moved to New York City in 1999 to pursue her journalism career, and here she strings together reflections from her more than two decades in the city, examining the difficulties of being both an evangelical Christian and a Big Apple Democrat. Passarella shines in whimsical autobiography: the opening essay, about her relationship with sex as an evangelical proponent of abstinence, hilariously explains her routine of telling men she would meet at bars that she wasn't going to have sex with them and reads like a stand-up act. While Passarella's wry tone works for essays about her chaotic domestic life (including a clever q&a about how to fit five people into a three-bedroom apartment) and destination weddings, readers may find some of the stories, such as Passarella's strangely self-satisfied explanation of shouting fights with her children, less amusing. Despite this, many readers will identify with Passarella's bright take on what it means to straddle multiple worlds. (Jan.)