Mini Review: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Now that we're back home, I can settle down and catch up on reading. I really didn't get much done while we were on the road. I did finish this, although it took me a while. I kept going back to listen to parts again, thinking I had missed something, but I think it's just the way the book was written.

Author: Rhoda Janzen
Narrator: Hilary Huber
Format: audio 8:15, 272 page equivalent
Subject: life as a non-practicing Mennonite
Genre: memoir
Source: public library audio download
Challenge: Support Your Local Library; audio books


It's uproariously funny in parts,--almost bawdy, and not at all what I was expecting. I can't figure out what the point was. It's just a rambling series of autobiographical reflections about the life of a 43 yr old college professor whose atheist husband of 15 years leaves her for a guy named Bob he met on gay.com.  She certainly has a rather sarcastic, smart-A viewpoint, and I enjoyed that.

She tells us about a car accident, her going home to recuperate with her parents, which leads to vignettes about growing up 'in the community', her mother's champion flatulence, the advise she gets from everyone about coping with her suddenly single state, but nothing seems to tie together. Worth reading, but don't expect the definitive treatise on anything.