I listened to the audio book version. I give this book three stars. *** I enjoyed the story and would listen to it again if given the chance, but I found myself a little frustrated by it at the same time. Looking for a Miracle is what I would call a "sweet romance." I expected it to be pretty chaste, which it was. What frustrated me about the novel were some of the same things that I also liked about it.
The biggest thing that irritated me was that the characters were a little too realistic. Nadine was constantly whining about how Rebekah got to do things she wasn't allowed to do. Rebekah was constantly focusing on the limitations her disability posed. Though very realistic teenage behavior and behavior for someone learning to cope with a disability, I felt like I wanted to give both characters a good talking to, slap them in the face, and just tell them to deal with it. Nadine's character in particular was very realistic in her self centeredness, but it got old page after page. I wanted to suspend my disbelief a little more. Brunstetter's constant use of showing the readers these two character's thoughts annoyed me. It's bad enough to hear a teenager constantly whine in real life about her siblings, but to hear their thoughts was a little much for me.
But it was realistic...
One thing that kept me engaged in the plot was that Brunstetter did an excellent job of dropping just enough Pennsylvania Dutch into all the character's speech to remind me that in real life these characters would be using very little English amongst themselves. Brunstetter uses a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch to English cognates, which greatly added to their characterization. I found myself looking for some print books about the Amish just to see how some of these words were spelled.
Another thing I liked about Looking for a Miracle is that Brunstetter's characters aren't romanticized to the point of being flat. It's easy to pigeonhole the Amish into an idea of what they should be like, but Brunstetter's writing shows the common humanity these characters have. The Amish get angry, irritated, lazy, sad, etc. just like others. I think Looking for a Miracle's best feature as a novel was Brunstetter's ability humanize the characters into people I'd like to know if I could meet them even though this was a work of fiction.
One thing that I would have liked to have addressed a little more in the book was what Amish group was fictionalized. Was this Old Order Amish? Beechy Amish? Etc.? As I choose book 2 to listen to and review, perhaps the answer is in Book 1 and I need to read book 1. I have a knack for picking books up the middle of a series. Other than the specific Amish group, choosing book 2 was very easy to understand the plot. This wasn't a novel in which not reading book 1 detracted from the story as I plucked this one from the middle of a series.
Brunstetter also does a good job describing the way of life the characters have established. I could picture all the gas powered items, the farm, the singings, etc.
I think the other thing keeping me from rating this book higher than 3 stars was the pacing. It was fitting that the pacing of the plot was slow; The Amish have a slow pace of doing things. I just wasn't used to taking 6 1/2 hours to listen to a storyline I could have summarized in three sentences. Perhaps I should read more sweet romance before being as harsh, but oh well. I did enjoy the novel, though.
Brunstetter surely didn't have any control over the last thing that made me rank the book lower, but I have to write about it. I listened to the audio book without seeing the cover. Library audio books are sometimes that way. When I finished Looking for a Miracle and looked the title up on Amazon to link to this page, I was disappointed because the book version has the characters' faces on the cover. The Amish don't like themselves portrayed with their faces showing. The publisher surely knows it. I know that Brunstetter knows it because her web page tactfully leaves the faces obscured with the images portrayed.
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