Mennonite Valley Girl, Carla Funk
Mennonite Valley Girl, Carla Funk
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Mennonite Valley Girl
A Wayward Coming of Age

Author: Carla Funk

Narrator: Carla Funk

Unabridged: 8 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 09/14/2021


Synopsis

Carla Funk is a teenager with her hands on the church piano keys and her feet edging toward the flames. Coming of age in a remote valley town—a place rich in Mennonites, loggers, and dutiful wives who submit to their husbands—she knows
her destiny is to marry, have babies, and join the church ladies’ sewing circle. In her world, the body is hidden in shame, the lines between the sexes are strictly drawn, and the wrong thoughts can tip you over into sin. But increasingly, she
wants to push the limits: of her family, her religion, and the little town that can’t contain her desires for much longer.

In poignant and hilarious stories, Funk chronicles her 1980s adolescence in all its awkward glory: from summer Bible camp to forbidden school dances, from questionable makeovers to hair-raising pranks. Through it all runs the longing to
make her life into a new and different story, as she asks the questions we all must face about where we come from and who we want to be.

At once an affectionate coming-of-age tale and a contemplation on meaning, morality, and destiny, Mennonite Valley Girl is about the places we all long to escape—even if they are the same places that define us.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill

I’m not really sure where to go with this book—-the scenes were familiar to me, the small town mindset of family, friends, community; the awkward isolation of being a chum teenager in shark-infested social waters; of being homemade in a world where everyone else seemed to exist of the store-bought.......more

Goodreads review by Vanessa

Coming from a Mennonite background, I enjoyed the Mennonite cultural details as it reminded me of things from my own childhood (e.g., rollkuchen and salted watermelon). I just found she was quite detailed in her descriptions which I often skimmed over and nothing particularly monumental happened. Sh......more

Goodreads review by Milana

In this funny memoir by a young woman’s quest for independence in an isolated Mennonite community. Carla Funk toes the line between following her parents footsteps and forging her own path. Coming of age in a forested remote valley, Funk knows she is to marry, have babies and join the church ladies......more