Very simplistic and fairly enjoyable, although as Mennonites are nowhere near as separated from modern society as the Amish, there are few interesting insights into a really different culture. You can read this book in one of two ways: either as a straight memoir by an English professor who had several personal challenges including a bad car accident who went home to her Mennonite parents to recover and wrote this book. Written with wry humor and huge personality-and tackling faith, love, family, and aging- Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead. (Rhoda’s good-natured mother suggested she date her first cousin-he owned a tractor, see.) It is in this safe place that Rhoda can come to terms with her failed marriage her desire, as a young woman, to leave her sheltered world behind and the choices that both freed and entrapped her. While Rhoda had long ventured out on her own spiritual path, the conservative community welcomed her back with open arms and offbeat advice. What was a gal to do? Rhoda packed her bags and went home. It was bad enough that her brilliant husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her with serious injuries. A hilarious and moving memoir-in the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron-about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down.

The mennonite in the little black dress