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Sep 07, 2011

Petra X rated it:

You can read this book in one of two ways: either as a straight memoir by an English professor who had several personal challenges including a bad car accident who went home to her Mennonite parents to recover and wrote this book. Very simplistic and fairly enjoyable, although as Mennonites are nowhere near as separated from modern society as the Amish, there are few interesting insights into a really different culture.

Or you can read this as a thinly-disguised hate book against her More...

6 comments like (26 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

I read the first 60 pages of this book one night when I couldn't sleep. It had me laughing hysterically many times in that 60 pages. The kind of laughter where you're glad no one else is around because you're honking and braying and sucking in air like some kind of asthmatic donkey.

Sad to say, she pretty much used up her good material in that first 60 pages. The rest of the book is well-written enough. (She is, after all, an English prof.) But it consists mostly of long, ramblin More...

4 comments like (12 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2010

Clif rated it:

This book is an example of turning lemons into lemonade as only a skilled writer can do. Have you ever noticed that some of the most interesting stories we tell others are those personal experiences where everything went wrong? Well, Rhoda Janzen has written about a time in her life when everything that could go wrong happened. Her skilled writing has turned her memories into an entertaining, often humorous, memoir. Contrary to Thomas Wolfe's novel, "You Can't Go Home Again," Rhoda More...

1 comment like (13 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Julie rated it:

I continued reading past the first chapter only by accident. I had set up the book on my nursing stand, and each time I finished nursing, I was too distracted with the baby to remember to change out the book. But if I'd had free hands, I'd have thrown it against the wall.

In this book, Rhoda Janzen commits the following crimes:

--she makes fun of her family members for being backwards hicks -- in mean ways

--she makes snarky comments about almost everyone and eve More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2011

Rachel rated it:

I don't often go for memoirs, but this one was of personal interest to me, and turned out to be really well done. Though some of the Russian Mennonite references were unfamiliar to me, with my Swiss/German (and primarily Midwestern) Mennonite heritage, a lot of it hit close to home. Such as this passage about the conflict between the author's Mennonite upbringing and her professional career and adult life:

"Consider how impossible it is, for example, to aspire to the role of vi More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2011

Sara rated it:

A perfectly fluffy hospital read. Janzen, after a series of disasters (a botched hysterectomy, a cheating husband, and a catastrophic car accident) moves in with her parents for financial and medical reasons, and reflects on the wild discrepancies between her life as a cosmopolitan poet/ academic and their lives as strictly observant Mennonites. Janzen has trouble hitting exactly the right tone -- at times she's making fun of her sister-in-law in rather vicious excess, at times she's sweetly com More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 10, 2011

Lisa rated it:

What I liked: A peek into a modern Mennonite's life, a woman who has left the community and examines how that foundation formed her. Some truly funny moments. The author is insightful--to a certain measure--and puts herself 100% out there in terms of vulnerability, which I admire.

What I didn't like: I felt the author was mean and crass and disrespectful to her loving, and amazingly tolerant, parents. I can handle sarcasm and love dry wit, but it has to be balanced (a la Anne Lamott). More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2012

Aisha added it

This was a pretty humorous read if only for the way she describes her Mennonite mother and her relationship with her. She captures the character of her mother so greatly that she paints a wonderful and frankly VERY humorous picture of this really unique individual. Truly, God Bless that mother! The mother seems like a great person - but has many idiosyncrasies which the author describes well.

It was pretty vulgar - and the author herself is not a practicing Mennonite - so she wasn't really truth More...

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Aug 02, 2011

Candace added it

An extremely funny and realistic memoir, spiced up by the book-smarts of its author. Amid the ruins of her own set of insanity/tragedy/melodrama, Janzen does what any self-respecting Gen-X'er would do and tries to go home again: back to the land of her midwestern Mennonite parents and sibs, to see if she can in fact figure out where it all went wrong. Her ensuing adventures are enough to make you fall out of bed laughing (or wake up your spouse with stifled giggles), mainly because no matter whe More...

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Jan 17, 2012

Jennifer rated it:

I almost quit this book after just 20 pages. First it was the plug from Elizabeth Gilbert on the cover, then it was the “text box” on the first page that made me wonder if the whole narrative was going to be dumbed down, as if the other piece of literature on my bedside table was the National Enquirer. Coincidentally, in one of the later chapters, Janzen makes fun of the Lillian Jackson Braun books, the same breed of book I thought to which this book might belong. But I hung in there, and fou More...

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Nov 08, 2011

Brittney rated it:

Though you would expect a rather unstable book coming from a woman in a midlife crisis, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress was breezy and humorous. This book was really well written by the poet and English teacher Rhoda Janzen, which grabbed me by the very first chapter. Rhoda was divorced by her husband of fifteen years for some guy he met on Gay.com, got in a car accident causing several broken bones, and on top of that, she is forty, alone, and on her way to her fellow Mennonite folks. Clea More...

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Nov 05, 2011

Tami rated it:

I've been reading a lot of memoirs lately. I really enjoy them. This one didn't disappoint. Rhoda Janzen is a great story teller and is able to express herself well. This book was funny in places ad thought provoking in others. My favorite part of the book was her relationship with her mother. It was tender and loving. I appreciated how she spoke so highly of her even though her mother was obviously very "different" than the "normal" mother. I appreciate when an autho More...

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Oct 14, 2011

Karyl rated it:

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. I had really only a vague notion of what it meant to be a Mennonite (though I knew the difference between them and the Amish), and this book really brings to life what it means to have grown up in such a conservative, different world from the rest of the modern US. But it's told in such a warm and friendly way, as if you want to visit with the Mennonites on a nice vacation to California one day, stuffed full of delicious food. I loved Janzen's huge vocabulary More...

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Sep 16, 2011

Angie rated it:

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen leads us back to a Mennonite community in California after the author is dumped by her husband after he meets a man named Bob on gay.com. Really – that’s how it starts.

This book is a memoir of Janzen coping with the end of her marriage mixed with observations of coming home to a strict religious community after years in academia. Janzen handles both sides of the story with humor, self-depreciation and gr More...

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Sep 09, 2011

Deborah rated it:

I liked parts of this book...it was laugh-out-loud funny (not just chuckle out loud, but, hearty laugh-till-you-cry funny) in the first 30 pages or so and the last 20. The middle of the book was dark, however, as the author described her 15 year marriage to an abusive and mentally ill man. That is understandable, this is a memoir and her life was probably dark during that time. At paces in the book it seemed like she was mocking religious people, including her own parents and family members. More...

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Sep 04, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

My life has been crazy this past year, and I find less and less time to read. I also find myself going through spurts of desperately wanting to read, but not having the emotional energy for anything too deep. A lover of memoirs, this makes my reading selections difficult at times. When my boyfriend handed me Rhoda Janzen's memoir, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, I thought I might have found just the book I needed to get me over my reading slump. And, I was right!

Janzen's light-hea More...

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Aug 16, 2011

Dee rated it:

What a wonderful story! Janzen writes with great humor at herself and life. She shares that distancing that so many young people do with their origins...in her case the Mennonite culture. But the tragedy of her marriage brings her home. (Home is where the heart is :) She finds herself realizing how much of her heritage she has carried with her all the time. She finds out a LOT about herself. Sometimes who we think we want to be and who we really like being are two different people. Janz More...

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Aug 02, 2011

Mandy rated it:

I struggled to find the point of this book. It seemed like one long, drawn-out pity party, where the author occasionally said something funny, and also completely off the wall. She was all over the place, and I dont think she managed to make it through a chapter without mentioning how her husband left her for a man named Bob from Gay.com. I began to wonder if she was getting paid to mention Gay.com in her book. There was one point that I actually did relate to the author--when she mentioned how More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Lynn added it

I like memoirs, what can I say? This one was amusing though I was expecting hilarious. I was curious about the Mennonite business but there was not as much insider stuff about that as I had hoped. The author writes well, with humor and intelligence but, as other reviewers have noted the "My husband who left me for Bob, a guy he met on gay.com" was over-done, to the point of being irksome. Also, I would recommend that one have a good dictionary close by while reading this as the aut More...

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Jul 25, 2011

Diane16 rated it:

This book is hard for me to rate. I would give the first two-thirds of the book a “3 star” rating and I’d give the last third of the book a “5-star rating”. The beginning of the book was very disappointing. Based on the title, I thought we find humorous insights to the author’s returning to the land of bonnets, aprons, black cars, and hard working people. In other words, I assumed she was raised as an Old Order Mennonite. Instead, her congregation was relatively progressive compared to the Old O More...

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Jun 26, 2011

Rosanne rated it:

Thank you Rhoda Janzen for a wonderful day today. I sat with Mennonite in a Little Black Dress all day. It has made me laugh, cry and think about so many things.

This wonderful memoir was written after Rhoda's divorce and subsequent accident when she returns home to her Mennonite family to recover. She recants moments in her early childhood from her adult perspective. She relives her romance, marriage and life with Nick the husband who leaves her for a man. We meet the rest of her f More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 03, 2011

Jenny rated it:

This fall the 50th Anniversary of the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird was celebrated. I think I must have read this classic story close to forty years ago. Two startling facts with which to start off this recommendation. I decided to re-read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD because my recollection of the story was pretty hazy and tinted by the visual memory of Gregory Peck in the film version. Outstanding film, but films should never be confused with the original. To be completely candid I liste More...

1 comment like

May 02, 2011

Rosemary rated it:

I was disappointed with this but to be fair, it was partly because I thought it was going to be something it wasn't. I expected to learn about the Mennonite religion and community in a serious way along with the jokes, but that didn't happen. Even in the appendix where there is a section on Mennonite history there was very little that I didn't already know, and I'm not exactly knowledgeable on the subject.

But enough of what this isn't. What it is, is an irreverent look at Rhoda Janze More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Apr 30, 2011

Hannah rated it:

When I came across this memoir I had no idea what to expect from it, but in the end this one made it to my list of favorite books of all time. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is the true story of Rhoda Janzen’s ‘mid-life crisis’ and what happens when she returns home to her Mennonite roots.

Though I did in fact learn quite a bit about Mennonite society from Janzen’s accounts, what really got me was the humor that she looks upon all events with. I have to say that I spent most of my ti More...

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Apr 30, 2011

Steve rated it:

There's a 1988 Amy Irving movie called Crossing Delancey. When I started to read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress I thought this book would be similar. I pictured a story of Rhoda Janzen's personal conflict between the culture she grew up with and, for lack of a better term, mainstream culture. I imagined I would spend my time with this book watching Janzen come to terms with her background. That isn't at all what this book is about. In fact, there was so little in the book about the Menno More...

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Mar 28, 2011

Ciara rated it:

this book seems to be getting reviews across the spectrum. kind of weird, because i thought it was a great! it's the memoir of a woman who spent fifteen years in an abusive relationship with an unmedicated bipolar man, until he finally left her for a guy he secretly met on gay.com. the same week, a drunk teenager loses control of his car & smashes into janzen's car on the highway, leaving her with a shit ton of traumatic injuries. she decides to go back to the small mennonite community where she More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 27, 2011

Amy rated it:

My Mother and I both read this book, and since she is not on Goodreads, and since we agree on the review, you can count this as TWO people who did not like this book. While I found it educational regarding "What is a Mennonite?" and the differences between Mennonite and Amish, I thought the execution was very unorganized. Yes it is organinzed into chapters etc . . . but her thinking is soo all over the place often going off on tangets of Theology that seem to have no connection or perh More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 23, 2011

Felicity rated it:

What do you do when your crazy husband of around fifteen years--the man you have married (after six months), left (at least twice), divorced, and then remarried--leaves you for a guy he met called Bob he met on Gay.com?

You go home to Mum & Dad...the same Mum & Dad you fled with that husband all of those years ago. And being your parents, they welcome you with open arms, even if you're no longer a practicing Mennonite. Yup, Mum & Dad are Mennonites.

This book is funn More...

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Mar 18, 2011

Cori rated it:

There was a lot I liked and a lot I thought was just so-so. Problem was, the so-so came in Janzen herself — I didn’t find her particularly likable. I didn’t really want to root for her. I know she went through a lot (a lot) of crap in her life, but I felt like that should have given her just a little more grace in the way she behaved and thought. Instead, her writing felt a wee too cynical. And while most of her jabs at her past were good-natured, a few felt like low blows. I wanted to say, “yea More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 12, 2011

Sibyl rated it:

I gobbled this one up in under 24 hours.
It's been marketed and reviewed as a humorous account of growing up with - and returning to - eccentric religious parents.
But I felt that while it is highly entertaining, it's also a good deal more thought-provoking than I had expected.
The author's reflections on her marriage to a bipolar man who was controlling and abusive,were lacking in self-pity, yet very poignant.
And, though there's a steady stream of funny anecdotes, there is More...

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