Book Waffle | The Beginning (2021) - In Search of the Title

 

The Beginning (2021) written by Beverly Lewis -

Have you ever heard of the Amish romance genre? Because I sure as hell hadn’t before I worked at a library. They fly off the shelves so fast, you wouldn’t believe. Hot stuff without the hotness. As the label might suggest, books under this label have an old-fashioned view of relationships. Imagine the complete opposite of Fifty Shades.

Beverly Lewis’s The Beginning primarily follows one 22 year-old Susie Mast as she pines after her childhood friend, Odie Yoder. Susie lives in the Old Order Amish settlement of Hickory Hollow with her sickly mother and younger, adopted sister. Furthermore, she is haunted by the deaths of her brother and father, which occurred a little more than a decade ago as of the book’s opening.

Now, that seems like a decent enough setup, doesn’t it? Especially when you look at the potential conflicts from a traditionalist Amish lens: Susie’s mother is skeptical of modern medical treatments for her chronic illness, Susie’s sister feels like an outsider because she wasn’t born into an Amish family, and there’s a mysterious bouquet that keeps turning up on the anniversary of her brother’s death.

But, holy balls, is this book slow. 

It's nonstop, angsty filler. 

I'm going to garden while angsting. I'm going to clean while angsting. I'm going to bake while angsting. 

Why won’t he ask me out? Why doesn’t he see me as more than a friend? Why won’t he buy my god forsaken peanut butter??

It's just too much.

It began to make me angry, quite honestly. Here's a thought, Susie: take some goddamn responsibility and ask him out yourself. Maybe that makes me a filthy blasphemer, I don’t know. Rather than doing the obvious, Susie tortures the reader with dozens of scenes in which she, more or less, laments, "I just don't know what to do!" 

Yes you do, you filthy liar! 

And thus we, as the reader, are strung along, anxiously awaiting any crumbs of plot that may emerge amongst the mass of useless filler. It's like playing “I spy” in a horse-drawn carriage as undigested turds burrow out of the driving animal's buttcrack.

It's made all the more incredible given the fact that the reader barely sees the main couple interact. Oh, how the supporting cast constantly fawns over the possibility of Odie and Susie’s close friendship blossoming into something more! God, it sure would’ve been nice if the reader got to see some of that chemistry.

All—literally all (there’s only like 5)—of their interactions are tense and awkward. The reader is, I guess, supposed to just sit there and believe that a guy and girl that can barely say a single complete sentence to each other have some long, emotional childhood backstory.

I know that Beverly Lewis is one of the more prolific Amish fiction authors and has a whole universe going on with shared characters in Hickory Hollow; it’s possible that the first 90% of this novel’s romance is within the pages of her other works. But, if that is the case, then this novel shouldn’t be marketed as “standalone.”

Hell, I would say that even labeling this as a “romance” is reaching. Why? Well (spoilers, lol) in addition to the zero chemistry, the main love interest literally up and leaves the town halfway into the story and doesn’t magically reappear until the last few pages. And even then it’s only to spring a marriage proposal on Susie.

“Wanna go out?”

“Okay.”

“What about marriage instead?”

“Let’s not be hasty.”

/ Epilogue: 1 week later /

“Wanna get married now?”

“OMG, YES!”

^ That is not an exaggeration; that is the literal, actual ending to this book. The Amish of Hickory Hollow do things different; what can I say? 4.30 / 5 on Goodreads, by the way.

The character growth in this book feels very uneven. Our protagonist, Susie, is angsty the entire time: no change there. Susie’s mother changes somewhat, but it is done entirely off-screen when the author demotes her to the supporting cast. Susie’s sister goes through a large change, but—as is the Beverly Lewis way—the reader never experiences the event she cites as prompting her change. It just comes across as carelessness given that the book has a plethora of tedious 500 word mini-scenes where a character does nothing other than monologue their thoughts to the reader, failing to advance the plot in any meaningful way. It’s rather ironic too, because despite the title of the novel, the reader never sees the beginning of any of the major plot points.

One of the subplots tries hard to carry this novel to the finish line. But by the time the book rounds the last corner, both its ankles are broken, and it has to resort to belly flopping down the final straightaway like a rabid seal, all the while adamantly refusing treatment from the on-site medics because of deeply held religious beliefs.