Almost Amish by Kathryn Cushman

(Image courtesy of Google)

I started this book blind, never having read anything by Kathryn Cushman. It was a random selection from a list Bethany House e-mailed me for a chance to review. Honestly, I wasn't excited about this one--a typical Amish story, I suspected. Not my normal genre.

You have my permission to call me wrong.

Life is fast, stressful, and lacking meaning for Julie Charlton. Two kids and a husband who keep her driving around for different activities so much that she comes to the point where she realizes she hates her life.

Then comes the opportunity to be part of a television segment with her kids, their cousin, and her sister-in-law. Sounds fun, right? Add in the fact they're going to be living like the Amish, and you've got an orginal story that surprised me with how much I enjoyed it.

The teens are hilarious. The setting makes you want to drive to the middle of nowhere and camp out for a few days.

I think we could all be closer to God if we would just get away from the world's distractions, like the characters try to do in this book. I heard a preacher say one time that when he was young, after he heard a sermon, he had nothing to do when he got home from church but think about that sermon. Now, everyone has cell phones and iPads and TVs to drown out the Holy Spirit.

Almost Amish offers important lessons we ought to learn--no matter how much we try to succeed in life, only what is done for Christ will last.