Boppli in a Basket By Sicily Yoder

My book review today is Amish Miracles: Book One, Boppli in a Basket. I don't like to write reviews that aren't really very flattering. This book was not one of my favorites. I usually like Sicily's books but this one was very confusing to me. There were parts I really enjoyed. There was a message of forgiveness and I liked that, and a strong Christian message.

In the prologue we find Bea Yoder taking her seventh child to the orphanage. Her drunken husband refused to allow her to keep any children. They are in an accident and you are led to believe that the mother is killed but you find out later that she was watching her daughter all the time.

Hope is sent for to come to her biological mother's funeral, but was unaware she was adopted. The back story jumps all over the place. We find out she left home because of her first love and his father's reporting her to the Bishop. We find out she love Levi but she married someone else and is now a widow. She is a medical examiner in Chicago. We find out she is an alcoholic and is arrested and taken to a rehab facility. Hope talks about the whole community calling her the boppli in a basket but she wasn't suppose to know she was adopted.

Levi Bender has been in her life since she left her Amish home. Her biological mother asks him to watch over her and see that she gets her favorite candy. Levi has helped several young men get free from drugs or alcohol and so he takes on Hope. He has a thing for Hope but isn't sure that she is the one God wants for him. It is very confusing, you don't know where he really stands with her.. At one point he calls her Miriam(I don't know where that came from but he calls her that several times) He brings her home to his Mennonite world to help her. He treats her terrible because he doesn't want her to think he loves her. He dates another woman and throws it in her face while he claims to God she is the one he wants. Then suddenly he does a whole about-face and tells her he loves her.

She meets her biological dad(who has dried out) but only pretend to be agreeable to him. She doesn't have anything to do with her adopted family until the very end. There is an aunt that is trying to take over but you don't really see or hear much from her, it is very confusing.

God bless you all.