The Midwife - Jolina Petersheim

Dear Readers,

This is the third time I have started this review.  Not because The Midwife by Jolina Petersheim is not good, but because I can’t find the right words to use to tell you how really good it is.  It is truly a story about walking in someone else’s shoes to understand what they have been through. 

Rhoda keeps everyone at a distance.  All the girls and young ladies that come through the home for unwed mothers that she works for, her fellow workers and midwives, the handy man/driver, everyone.  She does this because it seems like to her, everyone she loves abandons her and she no longer wants to risk her heart.

She works at Hopen Haus, a Mennonite support home.  When the community left the area it left the little house with little or no support and they are struggling to survive.  Rhoda sees it as just one more abandonment. 

I really can’t go on more or I will start giving the storyline away.  I was not too excited by Rhoda most of the story, but as I went on the journey that was her life I began to understand her more and more and that is what life is about also. 

There were so many different threads to this story.  It doesn’t make it hard to follow, it makes for a richer story.  Each person’s thread was important to what was happening at Hopen Haus.  I think that is what I liked the most about this book, how each person involved effected those around her for very different reasons, some good and some bad, and shaped the others because of it. 

 

Happy Reading,

 

Jolina Petersheim

Dear Readers,

I was drawn to the cover from The Outcast by Jolina Petersheim the minute I saw it.  I thought I would like to get a chance to read it, but this quiet little book surprised not only me, but the publisher as well on how quickly it would sell.  It was unavailable for a bit because the first group was sold out so quickly.

The subtitle is "a modern retelling of the Scarlet Letter."  It is easy to see the parallel to that book, but there are shades of the Rachel and Leah story in the Bible also, and that is what I found so fascinating.

In a quiet and gentle manner, Jolina is able to tell the very intense story of Rachel, a young Amish woman who finds herself in a community far from home.  She moved there to help her twin sister who was having a difficult pregnancy.  While there, Rachel becomes pregnant herself and refuses to name the father, which causes all kinds of uproar in the community.

When the Bishop of the church forces her to leave the community, she ends up living at Ida Mae's house. Ida Mae has her own secrets that she guards.  It puts Ida Mae in a special position to help Rachel in ways no one else probably could. 

The characters are portrayed in a rich and wonderful way, such that at one point I think I was mad or frustrated with all of them.  Which to me means that is a good story.  I became involved in their stories and cared whether or not if they were doing the right thing.

The storyline is not a great mystery and I am sure you can figure out who the father is quickly, but the back story of it is what makes this book so interesting.  I am looking forward to Jolina's next book which is scheduled to come out in 2014.

Happy Reading