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title: Running Around (and Such): Lizzie Searches for Love

author: Linda Byler

genre: YA fiction/amish families

pages: 345

published: 2010

source: sent for review by publisher

first line: Lizzie Glick noticed the change in Dat one evening when he came in from checking things over at the pallet shop one last time before bed.

rated: cutesy

Lizzie Glick longs to fit into her quiet Amish community. Her sisters, Emma and Mandy, are ready to get married and settle into the traditional rhythm of having children and keeping house. But Lizzie isn't sure that's what she wants for her future. It isn't that Lizzie doesn't want to stay Amish. It's just that there's so much to figure out!

Running Around (and Such): Lizzie Searches for Love is the first book in a three book series by author Linda Byler.
The story is centered around fifteen year old Lizzie Glick and her Amish family.
The family is about to move from their home in Jefferson County to a new home in Cameron County. The reason for the move being that Lizzie's Dad is giving up his business and becoming a cow farmer instead.


Lizzie lives with her 'Mam' and 'Dat', her twin baby sisters and her sisters Emma and Mandy. She is outspoken and dislikes housework and farming.



This book is mainly a coming of age story. Strong willed Lizzie struggles to fit in and she has views and ideas that differ from her parents and her Amish upbringing.
She doesn't want to marry a farmer and she wants to wear nice clothes and high heeled shoes. Lizzie is self conscious like any teenage girl her age. She feels like she's not pretty enough and not thin enough and won't fit in at her new hometown and school.

Lizzie felt mixed up. A part of her wanted to live here, to try new and strange things, but another part of her clung to Jefferson County. She felt as if everything secure was being taken away from her, and there was nothing to do but let go.
p.23

She gets herself into silly predicaments, such as stepping into wet paint and having a cow mistake her blond hair for hay. Lizzie argues with her Mom like all teens. She was whiny and would have temper tantrums here and there throughout the story and that annoyed me. There are flashbacks throughout the book as well, where Lizzie brings up childhood memories and in these memories, she tended to be whiny too.



Against her will, Lizzie winds up having to be a maud or a maid for another Amish family. Her parents think it will do her good to learn some responsibility and earn her own money. When Lizzie finally turns 16 she begins what the Amish call 'running around', or going out to social gatherings on weekends with other Amish teens. Once she starts running around, Lizzie meets some interesting boys and wonders who will be her husband one day.



Running Around is definitely a stretch for me. I've never read anything remotely Amish related. When I was first contacted about a possible review, I was interested in this book because I've never read anything like it and it did seem like it would be a fun, light YA read.




Running Around was an okay read. I'd say it is good for readers ages 11-14.


I think teens any older than that would not be able to relate to Lizzie, unless they are Amish themselves.





You get a view into the Amish lifestyle as the girls bake with their mother and sew their own clothes. Included at the end of the book are Lizzie's favorite recipes from the story, like Apple Pie with Crumb Topping and Chicken Stew, which I thought was a nice touch.

This was a light, fluffy read. It was definitely 'cheesy', but I expected that.
I didn't love this book, but I didn't hate it either.

The title 'Running Around' doesn't really suit the book too well, since Lizzie doesn't actually start to run around until towards the end of the book.
The ending leaves the book open for the next installment in the series.





About the author:

Linda Byler grew up Amish and is an active member of the Amish church today. Growing up, Linda loved to read and write. In fact, she still does. She is well known within the Amish community as a columnist for a weekly Amish newspaper. Linda and her husband, their children, and grandchildren live in central Pennsylvania.






Special thanks to Julie over @ FSB Associates.

title: The Shack


author: William P. Young

published: 2007

pages: 252

genre: christian fiction


first line: Who wouldn't be skeptical when a man claims to have spent an entire weekend with God, in a shack no less?

rated: 4 out of 5

Don't ever discount the wonder of your tears. They can be healing waters and a stream of joy. Sometimes they are the best words the heart can speak.

The Shack isn't a book I'd normally pick up, not because it doesn't sound good, but because I don't typically read Christian fiction. I need to remedy this, because the small amount of Christian fiction I have read, I have enjoyed. The reason I read this one is because my father told me was going to send me a copy of his favorite book, and this book arrived at my doorstep later that week.




Husband and father of five, Mackenzie Phillips, lives a good life with his wife Nannette. The two have a strong faith in God and pass this on to their children.
Nan is a registered nurse working with cancer patients. She is religious and refers to God as 'Papa'.


One day tragedy strikes and the unthinkable happens. They all suffer an immense loss, and Mack blames himself.


He finds something in an old abandoned shack that breaks his heart and nearly breaks his spirit. Mack goes through what he refers to as The Great Sadness.
He begins to question his relationship with God. Nans heart is also broken, but she finds a way to remain faithful and does not lose her hope in God.







About four years after the tragic incident that shakes Macks' world to the core and makes him question his faith, a note arrives in his mailbox in the middle of an ice storm. The note has no return addressed and is typed:

Mackenzie,

It's been a while. I've missed you.

I'll be at the shack next weekend if you want to get together.

-Papa

Mack thinks this is a joke, and is angry that anyone would send such a note to him, especially after what occurred in the shack four years ago.
After much debating about whether he should go to the shack or not, Mack decides to go. Once he arrives there, he begins to have an emotional breakdown before he awakens to find God waiting for him.



The Shack was a powerful and moving read. I cried at parts, laughed at others and this book really tugged at my heartstrings. I liked Mack and Nan and it felt as though I was reading someones life story. The writing was great, and there is some food for thought in this book. Especially when Mack has conversations with God. I enjoyed the talks they had about forgiveness. There was inspiration within these pages, and I recommend this one to anyone looking for an uplifting read.







Here's a few favorite tidbits:

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.

God's voice has been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.
It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners' access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia.


Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges?

Forgiveness if first for you, the forgiver....to release you from something that will eat you alive, that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly. Do you think this man cares about the pain and torment you have gone through? If anything, he feeds on that knowledge. Don't you want to cut that off? And in doing so, you'll release him from a burden that he carries whether he knows it or not-acknowledges it or not. When you choose to forgive another, you love him well.

title: Rain Song

author: Alice J. Wisler

genre: fiction/christian romance

published: 2008

pages: 195

first line: When they suggest changing the location of the family reunion, I am first to speak.



rated: 3 1/2 out of 5




Nicole Michelin is a middle school English teacher in her thirties. She was born in Japan to missionary parents, but her mother died when she was a young child and her father, who suffers from depression, never talks about it. He raised her in North Carolina where Nicole currently lives. She is very close to her grandma Ducee and her best friend Grable.








Nicole runs a website where she gives out help and info about caring for fish. A man named Harrison Michaels from Japan emails her one day and the two begin corresponding through email on a daily basis. As the story goes on, Nicole finds herself falling for Harrison and asks him for a photo, which he happily sends to her. But shortly after, Nicole doesn't get an email from Harrison for a few days. She wonders what is wrong. Then one day, Harrison emails her a single line:
'Nicole, my mother remembers the night you were born.'

Nicole herself knows little about her mother, yet always wonders and misses her dearly.



Stunned, Nicole realizes Harrison's mother must have known her own mother. She decides she needs to overcome her fear of flying and go to Japan to search out answers.





I thought Rain Song was a touching read. I found myself wanting Nicole to overcome her fears, hop on the plane to Japan, find out about her mother and find Harrison.



Here are a few of my favorite passages:

Putting on my short, brown suede coat, I head outside to sit on the brick step by my front door. Sitting outside calms me. Some folks do yoga or listen to music; I watch the stars. Tonight they are out-shiny, glittering, beckoning and so far way.

As a child, I used to watch the stars and try to determine which one was heaven's doorknob.

I still am not sure I can actually go through with this, but the truth is, i've gone too far now to go back. It's as if I was once happily swimming in one stream but a warm current suddenly caused me to turn and change my direction. I was a fighting fish at first, not wanting to be transported to anything different and unusual. Now I'm enjoying this new current, even though I know that down the stream, I may be faced with some dissapointing waters. I know because this is life, life with its fleeting moments of happiness.

Shame on me, I received this book as an ARC from library thing over a year ago, and I just now got around to reading it.