A World Away

Nancy Grossman's A World Away, a young adult novel, is perhaps the first novel I've read about the Amish that isn't from a Christian perspective. It's a secular book, but the difference isn't really apparent until you get to the "English" parts of the book, and even then, it's rather subtle. There's just the lack of anything religious in the English world: prayers before meals, church, etc. Otherwise, the basic plot is very similar to other books I've read about the Amish: a girl, hungering for the outside world, leaves her community, lives among the English, and must then decide which world she wants forever, because among the Amish, you can be a part of only one or the other.

Eliza has just reached the age where those in her community are given the opportunity to run wild. The Amish lifestyle is not forced. It's one you choose after a time called Rumspringa. But choose you must. There's no living with a foot in both worlds. Eliza is desperate to be given more freedom for her Rumspringa, but her mother is cautious about letting her go, to say the least. Put in an impossible situation, knowing they'll lose her if they don't let her go on her own, her parents send her to be a nanny for an English woman named Rachel. Eliza is ready to try everything and anything. After all, she only gets this one chance...unless she decides to stay. But she doesn't have to figure that out for a whole summer, a summer of fun, delicious boredom, an attentive new boy, and firsts of just about anything she can imagine. There's nothing so wondrous as trying something for the first time.

Grossman's familiarity with the Amish lifestyle is obvious. She didn't just write a book, imagining life inside the Amish world. She studied it thoroughly and presented a more detailed transition from Amish to English than I had seen before. She answered questions I wouldn't have thought to ask. If the author wasn't once Amish herself, either she must have had a lot of close contact or she must be similar to the book's character Rachel. I won't say how because that would be a spoiler.

In some ways, I missed the religious discussion that Christian novels about the Amish provide. But in other ways, I didn't. It was interesting to have the focus be on the difference in lifestyle, especially between a person whose life is wrapped around religion and one who has no religion at all. I wonder if the novel could have been just the tiniest bit better with something more said on the topic, but I don't know.

What I do know is that this is a beautiful book. It made me cry so many times. It's all about relationships and the mistakes we must live through ourselves even though those who have gone before try so hard to keep us from making them. I was impressed that even the friendships that Eliza has with minor characters we barely see in the book feel real. I love books that make every character count even when their roles are small.

There is a love triangle in this book, but the story is not primarily a romance. It's about two worlds colliding, though they aren't supposed to. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I have to say it resolved itself far better than I could have imagined. Four stars for a book that takes a common experience in another world and presents it beautifully for our understanding.

The Implosion of Aggie Winchester

I really disliked this book when I started reading it. What kept me going was that it was a nice hardcover I'd won for free from the authors of the Girls Taking Over the World tour at Summer's Stories. I thought I'd give it a chance.

Lara Zielin's The Implosion of Aggie Winchester is a young adult novel about a high school principal's daughter, Aggie, who is Goth, angry, afraid, in love with the wrong guy, and pretty much messed up. Within the first few pages, there is bad language, including the F-word, and innuendo. And it doesn't get better. The further I got into the book, the worse Aggie and her Goth friend, Sylvia, were. They were the opposite of everything I like in characters or want to read about.

But I also got a sense from the author that she wasn't condoning their behavior. She was telling the story of a girl who was going to have some dramatic stuff happen to her and, therefore, become a better character. I just wasn't sure if it was worth wading through all the garbage to get there. Still, I kept reading.

What really bugs me in some books (and it happened in Nocturne, too) is when a teenager and her parents completely miscommunicate and just get angrier and angrier with each other, resulting in the parents alienating their child and the child rebelling even further. I'm not saying it isn't realistic. It's too realistic, and I read books, in part, to escape that.

But aside from Aggie's flawed family relationships, Aggie herself drives me nuts. What kind of role model is she for a teenager reading this book? Characters in books can certainly have flaws. In fact, I think it's usually better for the story if they do. But, as my husband pointed out, Anna Karenina is a Russian classic all about an adulteress, and you never actually see her have sex. You never need to. I think some young adult books (adult books, too, for that matter) are more gritty than they need to be. I don't need to see the F-word every few pages to know that, yeah, Aggie's not a great person.

As I suspected, the book turns Aggie around, but not before she goes through a lot of pain. It's rough reading, watching characters' emotions spiral out of control when the answers are right there but no one will listen to each other. There's a scene I particularly like between Aggie and her mom, but it comes after a lot of awful stuff. Aggie also manages her boyfriend problems happily in the end, but I feel like I'm repeating myself here: it comes at a price. She never has sex, but she does practically everything else, almost negating the value of her abstinence.

The end somewhat makes up for all the story puts you through, as the reader, but I'm still not sure I would recommend it unless you know someone just like Aggie who could use a dose of reality to get her life straightened out. For me, however, it didn't cut it. It's just not happy reading. It's like reading about your local high school's gossip and scandal. However fascinating it may be, it's not uplifting or satisfying. It's rather horrifying, like a train wreck you can't stop watching.

But it's a good, solid, positive ending, so I'll dish out two and a half stars.