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A review by mjenae
White Horse to Bucharest: Lessons Romania Taught Us by Vila Gingerich
4.5
Things that worked for me:
1. The formatting. Collections of stories were gathered into sections—Disappointments, Stones, Needs, People, Seasons, Changes, Culture, Leave-Taking—and I loved how organized it was. Along this line: the Romanian quotes beneath the title of every story was another terrific use of parallelism and just worked so well from every angle.
2. The poetry. This was probably my favorite part. I would love to read another book by this author, but made up entirely of poems about Romania.
3. The description. Maybe it could've been done a tad better—the prose wasn't breathtaking—but come on, it's a writer describing a foreign country. Especially the story where she personified the cities—I drank that up.
4. The people. Mission life isn't all roses—but there are quite a few.
5. The religious perspective. It's nice to read something from such a comfortable level. I didn't even have to think to know what the author was talking about, because Mennonite culture is already my home. And, of course, I don't see that a lot. So that was nice.
6. "Nights Without End." [*giggle] It was so funny. I know I should feel bad for the author, but honestly, I enjoyed it too much. Her exasperation shone strongly through the pages and it was so perfect and I couldn't stop grinning.
Things that didn't work:
1. "Grandma Aurica's Family." I was confused by the author's viewpoint; she seemed to contradict herself in the narrative. My mind kept being drawn back to it throughout the book, and that bothered me.
2. The punctuation and grammatical formatting and sometimes even spelling could've used a little work. The small mistakes distracted me from the text a couple times. But only a couple.
All in all, this read was worth it. It may have felt a little self-published, but I wasn't expecting Proust, so that wasn't a huge disappointment. I feel like if anything didn't settle well with me it was because of my expectations, and that is no fault of the author's. The book brought back my dreams of mission work and made me homesick for a place I've never been. Take me to Romania—I should so like to see all the beautiful imperfection.
1. The formatting. Collections of stories were gathered into sections—Disappointments, Stones, Needs, People, Seasons, Changes, Culture, Leave-Taking—and I loved how organized it was. Along this line: the Romanian quotes beneath the title of every story was another terrific use of parallelism and just worked so well from every angle.
2. The poetry. This was probably my favorite part. I would love to read another book by this author, but made up entirely of poems about Romania.
3. The description. Maybe it could've been done a tad better—the prose wasn't breathtaking—but come on, it's a writer describing a foreign country. Especially the story where she personified the cities—I drank that up.
4. The people. Mission life isn't all roses—but there are quite a few.
5. The religious perspective. It's nice to read something from such a comfortable level. I didn't even have to think to know what the author was talking about, because Mennonite culture is already my home. And, of course, I don't see that a lot. So that was nice.
6. "Nights Without End." [*giggle] It was so funny. I know I should feel bad for the author, but honestly, I enjoyed it too much. Her exasperation shone strongly through the pages and it was so perfect and I couldn't stop grinning.
Things that didn't work:
1. "Grandma Aurica's Family." I was confused by the author's viewpoint; she seemed to contradict herself in the narrative. My mind kept being drawn back to it throughout the book, and that bothered me.
2. The punctuation and grammatical formatting and sometimes even spelling could've used a little work. The small mistakes distracted me from the text a couple times. But only a couple.
All in all, this read was worth it. It may have felt a little self-published, but I wasn't expecting Proust, so that wasn't a huge disappointment. I feel like if anything didn't settle well with me it was because of my expectations, and that is no fault of the author's. The book brought back my dreams of mission work and made me homesick for a place I've never been. Take me to Romania—I should so like to see all the beautiful imperfection.