May 19, 2009

A Gift of Grace by Amy Clipston- Blog Tour

I was given A Gift of Grace to review for an Amy Clipston blog tour and was excited by the synopsis. Rebecca is an Amish wife who's been told she cannot have children. When her sister Grace dies, she leaves Rebecca her two teenage girls giving her the chance to finally be a mother. It sounded intriguing to me and rightfully so. The book had a lot of potential, a great plot and characters, just poor execution in my opinion. The entire first half was great, Clipston developed not only each character fully but also developed the relationships between the characters. She posed realistic conflicts between the "English" girls and the Amish community and made you sympethic to both sides.

One of the biggest conflicts throughout the book is between Jessica (the oldest daughter) and Rebecca's husband Daniel. Jessica is set on not conforming to Amish culture, and Daniel is trying to following the rules of his religion and expects anyone living under his own roof to do the same. Try telling a 16-year old girl that she can't use her IPOD and that instead of shorts and a tank stop she has to wear a full length frock. Anyone can see a conflict, but the conflict that had me the most intrigued was actually the one between husband and wife. Rebecca finally stood up to Daniel when he told her the girls should leave, and it almost tore her marriage apart. And the book goes on with each side holding their own views and not budging.

So up until there the book was exciting and enjoyable. My problem with the book came in the final few chapters Clipston resolved, or didn't resolve the conflict. You think the author is going to work out some type of compromise between characters as a resolution, but she doesn't. Rebecca has to give in and Jessica and Daniel both get their ways. I feel like the author takes the easy way out alongside her characters by not developing a better resolution. I felt like she built up this great conflict and then got tired of it so she just decided to let everyone have their own way. So a book with a lot of promise never reached its potential only because of the ending. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the book and would still recommend it to anyone that enjoys fiction dealing with family relationships, Amish, and/or motherhood.

7 comments:

  1. I'm a big Beverly Lewis fan, so this does sound interesting to me.

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  2. Thanks for taking the time to review my book.

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  3. I've read this book, and I found it wonderful. Having grown up in Lancaster County, PA, she completely encompassed the lifestyle of the Amish people. I don't mean to be disrespectful of the reviewer, however, you don't know what Amish women are up against. They're second class citizens, and for her to go up against her husband is unheard of. Ms. Clipston did a fantastic job, and the way she wrote it was very true to the Amish society. And for them to take in a non-Amish person is also very, very rare, because of the problems they cause. Ms. Clipston did a fantastic job of researching the Amish, and is to be applauded, instead of being given this review.

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  4. Anon- you are right in that Britni likely cannot know what it is like in the Amish community. Most people probably don't. A book review is a very subjective thing, and any reviewer with the dignity to be honest about her opinion should be commended. There are a lot of reviewers and bloggers out there- a LOT- who will simply give a glowing review no matter how they truly feel in hopes of being given more free books. If I were to write a book (God forbid) I would rather have an honest review, negative or positive, than to be pandered to. And I would much rather read a review -or blog- that can be trusted to be completely honest than one that gives only glowing reviews.

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  5. I agree, Marie. Also, though not having read the book, it seems like Britni does a pretty fair job of reviewing it, pointing out what she liked and didn't like, while throughout being positive.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. I'm not sure whether or not anonymous will read this comment or not, but I just wanted to say that when I'm given a book to review by an author, I feel obligated to say what I truly think about the book. That's just who I am and if I had to write positive reviews all the time, I wouldn't accept any books to review. It's true my reviews are not always positive but they are always my honest opinion. I felt that this book lacked a resolution but other than that I had nothing bad to say. My review as not about what it's like to be an Amish woman, it was about tying a story together from start to finish. And like the sidebar says, this is my opinion alone and others are free to disagree.

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