Think you have nothing in common with Mennonites? Think again. Did you ever bring weird lunch to school? Did you ever wear ill fitting/out of style clothes? Were you ever forbidden (even if it was for the best) to participate in a school play? Has your mom ever tried to fix you up with your cousin? Despite all that, do you still love your parents? Rhoda Janzen's memoir, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress was like Eat, Pray, Love, but the food is borscht, the praying happens in her family's Mennonite community in California and the love...is her family.
After her heart is broken by her husband leaving her for a man he found on gay.com and her body crushed the same week in a car accident, Ms. Janzen returns home to recuperate and write. She weaves hilarious and poignant stories from her childhood alongside stories of her more recent past (now over 15 year marriage) and her parents' past. She reminisces with her sister and finds herself at odds with her brothers. But despite having broken with the traditional ways of the Mennonite, she holds no bitterness. We're allowed to laugh not at her family, but with them, and that makes all the difference.
This memoir gets 5/5 netflix stars in part because I'm easy with the stars but mostly because it was a wonderful read and made me want to shove it in the hands of several friends right away.
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