Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?: A Mennonite Finds Faith, Meets Mr. Right, and Solves Her Lady Problems 

About the Book

What does it mean to give church a try when you haven’t really tried since you were twelve? At the end of her bestselling memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen had reconnected with her family and her roots, though her future felt uncertain. But when she starts dating a churchgoer, this skeptic begins a surprising journey to faith and love.

Rhoda doesn’t slide back into the dignified simplicity of the Mennonite church. Instead she finds herself hanging with the Pentecostals, who really know how to get down with sparkler pom-poms. Amid the hand waving and hallelujahs Rhoda finds a faith richly practical for life–just in time for some impressive lady problems, an unexpected romance, and a quirky new family.

Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? is for people who have a problem with organized religion, but can’t quite dismiss the notion of God, and for those who secretly sing hymns in their cars, but prefer a nice mimosa brunch to church. This is the story of what it means to find joy in love, comfort in prayer, and–incredibly, surprisingly–faith in a big-hearted God.

My Thoughts

As I said before, I was looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, it let me down in just about every way it could. The story was very choppy and often hard to follow. Janzen jumps around a lot from past to present and the present spans a few years that take place not necessarily in order. It seems like whenever she was reminded of an old story she would just write it wherever she was in the book, even if it didn’t flow with the rest of the story. Janzen is her own main character and they both are English professors and as such they both like to show off their vast vocabulary. Unfortunately in the story most of Rhoda’s flowery vocabulary is unnecessary and makes the text annoying, if not difficult to read-even for me.

I appreciated Rhoda’s journey to real, personal faith in God. I love how it is Mitch, her reformed drug dealer boyfriend, who shows her what unconditional love is. I also appreciate the fact that God’s Word doesn’t return void and what Rhoda learned as a Mennonite child comes full circle as she makes her public profession of faith as an adult.

There are good points to the book, as you can see, but it is not one I enjoyed reading, but you might.

The Giveaway

One reader of The Mom Maven will win their own copy of Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?: A Mennonite Finds Faith, Meets Mr. Right, and Solves Her Lady Problems. This giveaway is open to residents of the US and Canada. The giveaway will end at 12:01am on November 5, 2012.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for the review. All opinions are 100% mine.

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