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"  Amen, Amen, Amen, by Abby Sher  In this lyrical memoir, Sher meticulously catalogs her life as only a woman plagued by intense obsessions and compulsions could. The death of Sher&amp;#039;s beloved father when she is just a child gives life to her neuroses, which grow from lengthy prayer sequences and collecting litter into anorexia and self-cutting. At its best, this is a love story\u2014alternately elegiac, for parents lost and a youth consumed; spiritual, for a God as present and raging as a great flood; and finally romantic, for a husband who redefines unconditional love. At its worst, however, the story is also one of love or, rather, devotion outlining a self-involvement so acute it threatens to shut even the reader out.\u2014Ashley St. Thomas, Washington, DC Sher persuades herself that she holds the key to preventing accidents and catastrophes if only she can maintain a barrage of religious recitations. Amazingly enough, she successfully attends high school and the University of Chicago and even becomes a member of the prestigious Second City Improv Comedy team, yet her compulsions sever her from any true enjoyment of life or relationships. Finally, her mother&amp;#039;s death helps her to confront her demons, albeit realizing she will always be subject to these irrepressible forces.\u2014 Penny Bernal, Encinitas, CA As you read, instead of being alienated from this young girl grappling with obsessions, you understand her story. In fact, the neurotic coping mechanisms the author creates to handle loss even make sense. She doesn&amp;#039;t seem crazy. You can follow the logic in her thinking\u2014flawed logic, perhaps, but still, you can trace her descent into chaos.\u2014 Jennifer Brown, St. Simons Island, GA Sher conveys her childhood angst poignantly, yet with an almost professional detachment gleaned by years of therapy. The little girl who so desperately misses her father and her aunt grows more introverted despite her mother&amp;#039;s efforts to help her. Such early losses color her world so irrevocably that she resorts to obsessive-compulsive behavior that manifests itself in counting, touching, and repetitive chanting. This memoir is easy to read because Sher never wallows in self-pity. She has done a brave and wonderful thing by sharing her story.\u2014 Narci Drossos, Valdosta, GA This book is not so much about the role religion plays in a young woman&amp;#039;s life as about the delicacy of the human condition and the fine line on which normal rests.\u2014 Karyn Polewaczyk, Cambridge, MA At times, Sher&amp;#039;s story made me angry because her mother failed her and didn&amp;#039;t get her all the help she needed, but her story ends in hope as she finds love and the strength to battle her problems.\u2014 Brittany Ruscitto, Princeton, NJ  Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen  Janzen delivers a book that not only deals with the hardships in life but also laughs at most of it. I believe the laughter comes from her need to not deal with things at the moment, but it does allow her to move on quickly from devastating events, such as the emotional and physical changes she has to deal with after having a hysterectomy at age 42. The surgeon makes an error during the surgery by puncturing two of her organs, making her incontinent, but even this does not bring her spiraling downward into depression. I spoke to myself and laughed out loud while reading her story\u2014laughing with her, not at her; crying with her, not for her. I found myself wanting to come to her defense and hug her. That is what nonfiction writing is all about.\u2014 Ann Horsky-McDonnell, Shirley, NY Janzen is funny, and she sure has material\u2014maybe too much material. Her Mennonite upbringing permeates her life experiences even when she has rejected its rigid lifestyle and become a poet and English professor at Hope College in Michigan. In her forties, her husband ditches her for &amp;quot;Bob from Gay.com.&amp;quot; Sharply witty, she self-deprecatingly and comically tells of her plight and her return to her family and Mennonite country. As entertaining as Janzen&amp;#039;s anecdotes are, some hit and some miss. Annoyingly long non-sequiturs, mostly dealing with food\u2014the majority of these with cabbage\u2014leave us wishing for more of a narrative structure.\u2014 Penny Bernal, Encinitas, CA Following her grandmother&amp;#039;s recipe to simply use the ingredients at hand, Janzen takes a conversational writing style, adds a heap of intelligence, equal amounts of dry humor and sharp wit, stirs in some deep thoughts along with her appreciation of the absurd, then tosses in genuine affection for her family and roots. She divides these into topics around which she tells her story, which brightly contrasts the girl she was with the woman she becomes, and dishes up one tasty Mennonite borscht of a book!\u2014 Nora Mathews, Grand Rapids, MI Janzen&amp;#039;s memoir about the fallout from her breakup unfolds somewhat slowly, meandering through the past and present as she crisscrosses the country trying to piece her life back together. After she retreats into the arms of her family, each chapter reveals new details about her former relationships and different aspects of Mennonite life. Her journey back to where she came from yields lots of laughter and ultimately leads her right to where she belongs.\u2014 Dana S. Kirkpatrick, Princeton, NJ This book seems less like a memoir than a comedy routine. The author is determined to turn every detail of her only marginally unique childhood and young adulthood into a hilarious anecdote. I realized halfway through the book that I did not know the characters on any real level and didn&amp;#039;t much care what happened to them.\u2014 Julie Taschetta, Los Angeles  This is a book to read for the author&amp;#039;s voice\u2014 funny and irreverent. You also get a unique glimpse in to the Mennonite religion from an insider&amp;#039;s point of view. There are a few major problems, though: The narrative is chronologically confusing\u2014I had to stop and clarify times and names regularly. Fabulous smart-ass snarkiness aside, being that this is a memoir, you read with the expectation that there will be an epiphany or an awakening for the author, and we don&amp;#039;t really get that here; Janzen begins the book with the dissolution of an abusive marriage and ends it explaining away her husband&amp;#039;s abuses and cruelties. You just don&amp;#039;t feel like she got it. Finally, while she partially attributes her staying power in an ugly marriage to the unquestioning nature of Mennonite women, she never digs any deeper. Her religion is like the white Elephant in the story: It&amp;#039;s a hovering presence, but somehow it escapes scrutiny.\u2014 Jennifer Brown, St. Simons Island, GA   The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, by Elna Baker  Baker, a young Mormon living in Manhattan, delivers a memoir in bright and breezy episodes. An aspiring actress who refuses to lose her title of &amp;quot;the funny one&amp;quot; when she sheds an excess 80 pounds, Baker outlines a quirky but relatable life: an ex-pat childhood in a traditionally large but distinctly cultured Mormon family, a college career at NYU, and a young adulthood spent alternatively seeking her own identity and her soul mate. The author&amp;#039;s comedic timing is accentuated by the book&amp;#039;s short chapters; Baker&amp;#039;s FAO Schwarz memories\u2014reminiscent of David Sedaris&amp;#039;s elf days at Macy&amp;#039;s (Holidays on Ice)\u2014in which dons an adoption nurse&amp;#039;s uniform to staff the Lee Middleton Doll &amp;quot;orphanage&amp;quot; and sell overpriced baby dolls to spoiled kids, are pitch-perfect. While the search for Mr. Right (even with a Mormon twist) is a little stale, Baker&amp;#039;s carefree spirit is contagious and her goofiness genuine.\u2014 Ashley St. Thomas, Washington DC There are many tales of looking for love in New York City, but very few of them involve a plucky Mormon who approaches life with a resounding &amp;quot;Yes!&amp;quot; Sure, this leads to some complicated situations, such as falling for an atheist, hoping to meet men while dressed as a fortune cookie, sneaking onto movie sets and cruise ships, and making out with movie stars much her senior. Through it all, Elna Baker holds tightly to her faith\u2014well, fairly tightly, anyway. In a constant struggle between her Mormon background and her very modern life, it&amp;#039;s refreshing to see that she takes it in stride as much as possible.\u2014 Kate Esposito, Crofton, MD  A lot of people would rather die than spend eternity with their families. Elna Baker is afraid of dying and spending eternity without hers, which, according to Mormon beliefs, is what will happen unless she marries a Mormon man in a Mormon temple. This causes her to lose the non-Mormon guy she loves, but she can&amp;#039;t forget him, which causes her to sabotage the chance she gets to marry a Mormon she doesn&amp;#039;t love\u2014 or does she? She&amp;#039;s clever and conflicted, sincere and funny, but in the end leaves the reader like her boyfriends: frustrated.\u2014 Nora Mathews, Grand Rapids, MI Elna, Elna, Elna. While the author&amp;#039;s endearing of humor and humility cast a warm light on this memoir as a whole, her chronic self-deprecation is tiring, and the reader is as exhausted as she is climbing up and down every which alley, ladder, and shadowed path in an inconclusive (and, at times, obsessive) attempt to define herself.\u2014 Karyn Polewaczyk, Cambridge, MA Basically, reading this book was like reading my kid sister&amp;#039;s diary. Baker isn&amp;#039;t that old\u2014I think she was 26 at the book&amp;#039;s completion\u2014and she admits she has lagged behind on the maturity scale for most of her life (due in large part to her sheltered Mormon upbringing.). Reading her story was like remembering issues you struggled with in eighth grade: how many boys you&amp;#039;ve kissed, how do you even kiss. I felt embarrassed for her as I was reading her story "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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