Reading Challenge Book Reviews Week Ending May 8, 2010

Rebecca's Promise (Adam's County Trilogy Series #1), by Jerry Eicher
100+ Books, Buy One and Read It, New to Me Christian Author, First in a Series

Rebecca made a promise eight years earlier, when she was nothing more than a young schoolgirl, to meet her crush back at the bridge when she turned 21. But life has changed so much for the young Amish woman in those 8 years. She has moved away, accepted a marriage proposal, and the young boy she had a crush on has left the Amish community and "gone Mennonite." But on the eve of her 21st birthday, when she becomes an adult in the Amish community, she is sent back to the town where she had the crush to help her aunt have a baby, she is stirred by emotions and thoughts of what if.

I found this book to be a bit dry and honestly somewhat boring for the first half. Perhaps it's because I had JUST red Beverly Lewis's The Parting which is also about the Amish. Or maybe it's just this book. The second half picked up better and was a lot more fun to read. I was bothered by how too much of the story seemed to bounce around to other characters that seem, IN THIS BOOK, to be unimportant, minor players. But, I am HOPING that the author is laying the groundwork for them to have larger roles in the other 2 books, as this is a trilogy. If that is the case, it will certainly make more sense in the end, but I would have preferred some of it to have been more subtle. I've seen other authors bring in characters in this way without them confusing the overall book such as Eicher did in Rebecca's Promise.

I am looking forward to reading the other 2 books in the near future to see how the rest of the story turns out. How her return to her own community goes, and how these other characters play out.

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
100+ Books, Support Your Local Library, 451 Challenge, The 2nd Challenge

451 degrees Fahrenheit... The temperature at which paper burns. How can I NOT love a BOOK about a crazy world where fireman SET fires to BURN books?? I was first assigned to read this book the summer before my freshman year of high school. Then we read it again during the year. Over the course of the following six years I re-read that copy of the book SO many times that I finally had to throw it away as it was missing pages and had torn pages.

I am not EVEN going to attempt any further review of this INCREDIBLE work. I declare Fahrenheit 451 a MUST READ!!! :)