Fourteen-year-old Marina Marlow and sixteen-year-old Jed Hoskins are strangers to each other when the novel begins, but their relationship soon becomes the novel's focal point. Integral to it are overlapping themes that reflect upon the overall complexity of life. These include family dynamics and religious faith as well as alienation and maturation. Specific family issues involve spousal infidelity, separation, and child abuse. The Believer religion raises specific questions of fanaticism, charismatic leadership, and the nature of faith and its relationship to science.

Marina and Jed bond because of stressful circumstances. Marina's particular situation interrelates thematic aspects of family and religion. Marina's mother Myrna, a Believer, leaves her husband behind with his girlfriend and takes their six children to the encampment. While Marina tries passionately to accept her mother's faith in an imminent Armageddon, she vacillates and thinks in terms of "maybe." She is especially...