https://rummageandreason.blogspot.com/2020/02/so-we-read-amish-romance-part-1.html
It was really hard to condense 13 pages of notes into this.
Book Two of Beverly Lewis' 'Seasons of Grace' trilogy continues the story of the emotionally stunted Byler family and the angsty Englisher Heather with all the speed and suspense of tar sliding down a molasses-coated slope, raising such deep questions as, 'What is forgiveness?' 'Is chemotherapy the only answer to cancer?' and 'Why did we do this to ourselves?'
The Premise
Picking up from the end of the first book, Lettie Byler has run away from home to find the child she bore out of wedlock, who was taken away from her at birth.
Her daughter, Grace, wants to go after her and bring her home - or find out why she left.
Judah nurses lambs.
Heather - the English girl - has come to the Amish community to pursue natural cancer treatments.
And in the midst of all this, Yonnie - a young Amish man - has taken to helping around the Byler farm and seems very attentive to Grace, in his strange ways. After all, he's the only man Grace has ever known to thank her for cooking meals.
The Good Parts
*Deep breath *
Okay.
This book was actually better than the first one, because at least three characters were actually doing something.
Lettie's quest to find her lost child is the saddest and most compelling of all the plots, as we grow to know her better and understand her situation.
On the other hand, Heather is still extremely obnoxious and stupid, but at least we got somewhere.
Then we have Yonnie.
Yonnie is the BEST THING to come out of this series (so far.) He's a true gentleman, he cares about others, he takes the time to get to know a girl before asking if she'll court him (apparently a shockingly rare thing in this community,) he listens to Grace, encourages her interests without bargaining for anything in return, and generally doesn't care for the local gossip as a source of information. Also he has a super cute dog. Don't ask me how I know it's cute, I just know it is. It's a German Shepherd.
The Consistently Irritating Parts
This community is the worst.
The Byler family is the worst.
Grace is so saintly in every way it's nauseating. This sort of seems like a double-standard, considering what I just said about Yonnie, but let me explain:
The problem with Grace is that she's so perfect, nothing she does is ever portrayed as a flaw. Yonnie is often called out on for being 'too happy' and very talkative, but Grace is portrayed as being the true patron saint of the community, no matter what she does. Her hypocrisy, judgementalism, and weak-will are all glossed over as good things, and she is never allowed to mess up. Her opinions change so often, we can't say for certain what she truly believes.
Also she's evidently the emotional anchor for her family, the one who all the others - parents included - go to for validation or comfort, and you know that ain't right.
(Note: I'm not saying family members shouldn't share concerns and problems with each other - that's actually the biggest problem this family has. What I'm trying to say is, it's okay to seek comfort from each other, and natural to look for some validation from those older/wiser/more experienced than you, but it's not okay for a parent to put their kids in that situation, where they have to validate you day in and out. You're the parents. Act like it.)
Judah is still irritating, but getting better. He definitely grew through the book, so we can forgive him for being a self-centered jerk in the beginning since he recognized that he was a self-centered jerk at the end and was moving to fix it.
For context, beginning of the book:
'Perhaps my lost, runaway wife see me as the good shepherd, going after that lost sheep, as I send my daughter to look for her instead of myself because I've got work to do.'
'I hope my daughter gives up this foolish notion of looking for her mother - what would the community think?'
End of the book:
'I am the worst. I should've listened to my wife, I should've put in more effort - How could I have been so cold?!'
Plus he marched into his in-laws' house, sat his father-in-law down, and said point-blank:
'Tell me what happened to my wife before we were married.'
Heather is just stupid. To be fair, I'm no fan of chemo either, but she's so set against it that she doesn't look for more than one alternative, she does no research on that source, and is fully willing to put her life in the hands of a 'doctor' who shouldn't even legally be practicing*. Then she starts swooning over a guy she met online, under an anonymous name, and has never seen or talked to in person. She's also awful in that she treats the Amish like an exotic aesthetic instead of people.
Oh, and our strong, independent feminist evidently has no job, so she fully expects that daddy will pay off the whopping natural-treatment bill, no sweat.
(*The 'doctor' in question is a naturopath, and there's a scene where it's explicitly pointed out that she doesn't have any certificate that equates a medical doctorate. This makes the fact that she calls herself a doctor and prescribes treatments to people very illegal. Also she's a very bad doctor, as she immediately attributes Heather's cancer to 'the American diet' without asking questions such as, 'Do you smoke?')
But the supreme, unquestioned crown of awful, terrible people in this town is Grandma Adah. From the first book, we got that she forced Lettie to give up her child, but we weren't prepared for how utterly cold and unfeeling she is about that fact. Her primary concern is not for the safety or well-being for her daughter, but the family reputation, and if Lettie's return should endanger that, perhaps it would be best if she never returned.
We also gather that she and her husband Jakob emotionally neglected - if not straight-up abused - Lettie, considering that when a total stranger intentionally makes Lettie a cup of tea exactly as she likes it, Lettie begins to cry and explains that no one has ever been so kind to her. NO ONE.
And yet Beverly still manages to victimize her.
Jakob was a sexist but generally loving and gentle guy in the first book.
In this one he's grumpy, vindictive, and manipulative.
Adam went from respecting his sister to threatening her to marry or else.
As for the community, the fact that a man who is affectionate and attentive to his wife and children is so unheard of and 'strange' pretty much explains it all.
Sleep-deprived Writer Complaints
What have I learned from this book?
1. Random subject jumps for no reason whatsoever are fine.
2. Everybody loves a flawless heroine.
3. Describe EVERYTHING. Even the little movements that signify nothing can be milked for every little fiber of detail.
4. It's perfectly fine to use only half of a definition for a word! (Thus rain smells 'musky'.)
5. There's no such thing as adjectives setting mood. (Clearly, 'murky' paints a peaceful picture!)
6. Repetitive info dumps are completely essential every time.
7. Describing what a character looks like every time they appear is absolutely essential (because, y'know, the audience might have forgotten what they look like in 5 minutes.)
8. Always maintain stereotypes.
9. Your characters' assumptions about others' thoughts and motives must be %100 accurate.
Generally Weird Things
'I'm having an emotional breakdown - off to the front yard!'
"Hardly anyone Grace had ever known had ever changed their eating habits unless they were dying."
16-year-old has the body of a 6-year-old (it's either that or she's incredibly obese.)
Romantic descriptions of everyone (unless they're fat.)
'My naturopath doctor can surely use her feminine charms to change my dad's mind.'
Romanticizing the effects of cancer (Heather is 'slender' now, not 'scrawny' or 'bony'.)
Everyone is bipolar.
Very clearly having sex-scenes while dancing around the fact ('trust' being used as another word for doing the you-know-what.)
"She literally shuddered."
"Eavesdropping was one of the perks of his job."
'Only a woman could make a kitchen-dining-room considerate floor plan!'
The great sub-plot of the sandwich.
Crackers and warm milk.
And our personal favorite:
"Yonnie's going to put his feet under your table tonight!"
"Tonight?" Grace exclaimed.
"And every night - except for Saturdays and the Lord's day."
........ Something about that sound weird, or is it just me?
The Question of Forgiveness
The dominant moral question in this book is: Can Lettie forgive her mother for what she's done?
Beverly's answer is: Yes. "When you understand, you will forgive."
Okay. Let's take a moment here to think about this.
Louis Zamperini was a US bombardier in World War II. At the midpoint of the war, his plane crashed in the middle of the ocean, and he and two other crewmen huddled together on a tiny raft for 47 days. One of them died on the 33rd day. They endured rain, circling sharks, starvation, and a fly-by shooting by a Japanese aircraft. When they finally came ashore they were taken prisoner by the Japanese.
For the next 25 months, Zamperini was moved from prison camp to prison camp, tortured, beaten, starved, and neglected. In the midst of this, a guard named Mutsuhiro Watanabe decided to make it his task to break the American down. He personally abused Zamperini, beating him with a belt buckle across the face, forcing him to complete mindless tasks to the point of exhaustion, and humiliated him with every chance he got.
When the war ended, Zamperini returned home a changed man. Nightmares plagued him. He took up drinking. He nearly destroyed his marriage.
Then he went to listen to man named Billy Graham preach. Zamperini found salvation through that experience, and his life turned upside down. He and his wife raised two children. He ran a center for troubled youth - people like him in his younger days. And he wrote a letter to Watanabe.
"As a result of my prisoner of war experience under your unwarranted and unreasonable punishment," Mr. Zamperini wrote his former guard in the 1990s, "my post-war life became a nightmare … but thanks to a confrontation with God … I committed my life to Christ. Love replaced the hate I had for you."
- Wall Street Journal, 'The Defiant Ones'
Forgiveness shouldn't be dependent on understanding. Sure, understanding why we suffered is great, but saying that we can only forgive if we understand is a very narrow, cold idea. In my opinion the most amazing aspect of forgiveness - the aspect that gives it it's shocking, amazing nature - is when we forgive without understanding. When we say, 'I don't know why you did it. I can't imagine why you did it. But I care about you and want the best for you. I love you.'
Book three addresses this further, but that's another post and I need to take a break.
Basically, 'The Missing':
Have a nice day.
