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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Mercy Marlowe’s The Jesus Girl follows Jessica Sandoval, an eighteen-year-old Tampa high school senior whose Christian faith motivates every prayer she writes and every plan she makes for UF pre-med. Jess has spent five years calling David Michaels her best friend after a middle-school fight turned the neighborhood bike thief into her favorite person. David believes his childhood encounter with the Grays may prove aliens guided human history, yet Jess sees that obsession as spiritual danger. Their bond grows harder to name after David’s girlfriend Kelcy starts treating Jess like competition and David’s old dream of marrying Jess stops sounding like a joke. As Jess’s nightmares and questions about ancient history begin crossing into daily Tampa life, aliens versus demons becomes David’s favorite argument made real.
Mercy Marlowe’s The Jesus Girl is an incredible speculative romance. We see exactly how Jess thinks in those prayer spirals, delivered with full Latina panic, especially at the Valentine’s rehearsal where Janey’s costume scheme leaves Jess exposed, and Jess prays herself onto the stage. That is Jess in a nutshell. David brings out her playful side during the Super Bibletopia crossover, where their secret mole-and-raider identities become a goofy Noah’s Ark war with flirtation underneath it. Papi’s creekside talk gives David room to speak about Sam, making tenderness feel natural in that moment. Mimi’s holy water jar is another winner, turning the haunted phone into something absurdly funny yet genuinely scary. The author commits completely to Jess’s world, which gives the book a big personality. Readers who enjoy speculative romance with heaps of cool sci-fi are in for a real treat.
