In which trek reviews A Gift of Grace

I have read a fair bit of what's become known as bonnet fiction in the past four years or so. Bonnet fiction is a subgenre of Christian fiction set amongst the Amish or Mennonite people of the midwestern United States. Generally, I find these books to be quick, easy reads which avoid both scatological and blasphemous language and voyeuristic bedroom scenes. I am not saying that the lifestyle depicted is a Utopian one nor am I saying that I have any desire to go join up, I am just saying that the authors of this subgenre tend to be very particular about maintaining a "clean" tale.

Even though books in this category are fast reads, that doesn't mean that they don't make the reader think. I often end up having conversations with NumberGuy about something a particular character did or about how the community handled a problem. I find myself sometimes wondering how people in the story, particularly the women, can live such circumscribed lives.

I scored A Gift of Graceby Amy Clipston free for Kindle and read it the other day. A Gift of Grace made me think.

At the beginning of the book, Rebecca Kauffman is bringing her sister's two teenaged nieces home to live with her. Her sister and brother-in-law had been in a head on collision with a drunk driver and neither survived. Okay so far, right? The problem was, Rebecca's elder sister, Grace, had left Bird-in-Hand twenty years ago to go to college and marry and Englischer: Grace's girls are typical American teens, used to iPods, computers, cutoff denim shorts, and bikini bathing suits, especially the older daughter, Jessica.

Rebecca is willing to allow the girls some leeway but her husband, Daniel, is less so. He is concerned about the opinion of the community, particularly that of his own eldest brother. Younger niece, Lindsay, fits into the Plain lifestyle easily after only a couple of weeks. Never a scholar, Lindsay is rather relieved that Amish children do not attend school past the eighth grade. Jessica, who has dreams of becoming an accountant, is devastated at the idea that she will not be allowed to finish high school and continue on to college. All Jessica wants is to return to Virginia Beach to live with her godmother and continue her education.

Right here, I began to have my own issues with the storyline. The community is described as being very religious and trying to be tuned into the will of God. Why then, would it be such an issue to enroll the elder daughter in the nearest high school? Nobody is harboring any illusions that Jessica will ever be interested in becoming a part of the Amish church. Why not simply allow her to go to school? She is just a couple of months shy of her sixteenth birthday in May, when the story begins. Let the girl work over the summer and start her junior year come the fall.

This, of course, forms the major conflict of the story: Jessica not fitting in. Even when Jessica tries her hardest to be helpful and to fit in, she gets into trouble. Here is where I have another problem with the storyline. Amish children enter their Rumspringe at about age sixteen. For the next two to several years, their elders turn a blind eye to their shenanigans, the thought being that the teens will try English ways, see that it isn't for them, get baptized in the Amish church, and start a family. Why weren't Jessica's faux pas treated as Rumspringe antics? Why was everything she did taken in the worst possibly light? Why did the community spread gossip about her so harshly, without regard to the truth of the situations? Why did certain characters regard her with suspicion from the very start?

My third problem with this storyline is that this book, and bonnet fiction as a subgenre, seems to over use things like accidental deaths and fires (alone or in combination) as the driving force for the action. Last summer, I reviewed a bonnet fiction series in which the action was driven by get engaged, lose fianceé, become resigned to spinsterhood, get swept away be a new love. Again, the action was driven entirely by a predictable series of tragedies.

Despite these issues, A Gift of Grace was an okay read. The book was interesting enough for me to pick up volumes twoand threeof the set at the library last night.