by Cindy Patterson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 23, 2017
A well-crafted and heartwarming cross-cultural tale of first love.
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In this debut novel, an unconventional romance ignites in Pennsylvania Amish country.
When teenager Rachel Adams, one of the main characters in Patterson’s series opener, moves with her mother from Florida to Paradise, Pennsylvania, in the wake of her father’s death, she’s expecting disappointment and loneliness. Rachel’s mother, Beverly, has purchased a farmhouse in Paradise, and because it requires the extensive attention of an expert handyman, she’s referred to young Paul Fischer, an Amish teenager who comes highly recommended. Rachel is determined to step outside her own resentment of the move. “If there was any hope of contentment, it was up to her to make that happen,” she muses, nevertheless bitterly telling herself that “regardless of the name, this would never be paradise.” For his part, Paul looks on the offer to do work unconnected to his well-meaning family and domineering uncle as an answered prayer even though his upbringing has warned him constantly about the dangers of associating too closely with outsiders. In the standard manner of such love stories, circumstances conspire to bring the two young people together, and romantic chemistry almost immediately develops. In gentle stages, Rachel warms to Paul. “He was amazingly easy to talk to, this Amish man who’d entered her life,” she thinks at one point. “Every encounter she had with Paul made the scales tip in favor of staying in this small town—of even being happy about it.” Patterson captures this slow process with a careful ear for dialogue and a sharp eye for the texture of small-town life. The book indulges in very little of the saccharine idealization that often mars Amish fiction. Instead, the difficulties thrown in the path of true love here feel entirely organic and unforced—including the competition Paul faces for Rachel’s attentions from Kevin Williams, an outsider. The author writes a fairly predictable story with a great deal of heart and conviction; readers should be charmed almost from the first chapter.
A well-crafted and heartwarming cross-cultural tale of first love.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5413-2637-8
Page Count: 291
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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by Chaim Potok ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1967
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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