An Unseemly Wife

by E.B. Moore
Hennepin County Library paperback 309 pages
genre: Christian historical fiction

I've never been a huge fan of Amish fiction, and a story set during the Westward Expansion is even less inspiring to me. Ruth reluctantly goes west with her husband Aaron and four children while nine months pregnant . . . I told Louie if he'd told me we were doing this, I would have said "have fun."

pg 71 - ". . . the end destination made Aaron seem wooly-minded, even greedy in light of the plenty they possessed." Although the reasons Aaron gave for wanting to leave made sense, they really had a nice life already. Why risk everything for more land?

pg. 96 - "This was not who she wanted to be. She believed the tenets of giving and receiving." I like Ruth as a character and her strength. She was a great protagonist.

pg 114 - Part II "Keeping Plain" . . . the delineation between the sections wasn't very distinct other than the lovely section headers.

pg 146 - "No, her children would not be baptized. They would choose at eighteen, the way everyone in their Fold did, and until then no one could deny them the glory of God's love. It wasn't theirs to withhold." I love this! Infant baptism vs. individuals choosing for themselves. It makes a difference!

pg 170 - When Bathsheba went missing, I was so sad. That cow was precious and meant so much to Ruth.

pg 234 - Ely and his bride eyeballing all Ruth's and Aaron's possessions . . . how maddening! I could identify with Ruth's feelings a lot.

pg 247 - Part III "A Wager of Bones" - I finally lost it and cried hard at the end. When Ruth and Esther (dear little Esther!) walked past the people who gathered to watch the wagon burning . . .

This was a depressing story. I still don't like Amish stories. We had a great conversation about it.