Almost Amish by Kathryn Cushman - Review

Susan Reynolds, divorced and mother of 17 year old Angie wants to sign on to do a three month 'experiment' living the 'simple life'. She asks her sister-in-law Julie Charlton to leave her husband in California and take 16 year old Whitney and 13 year old Brian to the midwest with her. The sisters-in-law get along well but were raised in two completely different worlds, doing this for Susan will mean five people living in one farm house without modern conveniences.

Julie is tired of her life, she doesn't cook well, doesn't keep her house clean enough, and is constantly on the run for her husband, kids and different committees. She really has no time for herself or to enjoy her family. Susan on the other hand is an uptight perfectionist, she can cook, her house is spotless and she wants to do this so she can write a book to have enough money to give her daughter everything, regardless of whether her Angie wants the same things or not. Basically Susan thinks her life, and Angie's, depends on the success of this venture.

Kendra, the producer for the Lisa Lee show will stop at nothing it seems to make the series a success. One example, the first task to be filmed is Julie, the non-cook, making a shoo fly pie. Since nothing ever turns out for Julie, Susan coaches her for two days before the filming, just the preparation of the pie though since they don't have a stove in the house yet. They get the stove on the day of filming but they didn't expect it to be a wood burning stove!

Susan is the domineering person in the book and is constantly pushing everyone to work, work, work, because of course everything has to look and be perfect. Julie is the one that tries to live the simple life and is soon enjoying the fun times spent with the kids. Oh, and thanks to Susan, the kids have to attend school even though it's summer. She gets very upset because she doesn't think the schooling they get in the one room schoolhouse, with just their three kids, is good enough.

Kendra doesn't help things since she is very demanding, lets them know plans at the last minute and comes across as an unfeeling rude person, kind of like Susan. It doesn't help that Susan didn't share with Julie how much she's depending on this series being a success, so Julie can't figure out why she's even more pushy than normal.

After one event involving Angie, Susan's honest, well behaved, daughter, they are at odds and it could cause the cancellation of Susan's contract and also, unbeknownst to Susan, Kendra has offered Julie a continuing series instead of Susan.

This is the first book of Kathryn's that I've read and I will be reading some more of them. I thought it was kind of a slow start, mainly because I requested the book by looking at the cover and the title, lol, yes, I'm one of those, so I didn't realize what the story was about. If I see something that looks like an Amish story, I want it! I really did enjoy the story once I got into it, and it can teach us a lot about slowing down, quit demanding so much of ourselves. We also need to remember that a simple life doesn't mean less busy, but it isn't as hectic.

Thank you to Bethany House for providing this book for review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255