Random Books that don’t deserve a full review but need to be talked about: 

Christy Miller series books 1-3.

Apparently Catherine and her sisters were ardent readers of this series back in the day. I’d never heard of it and it’s probably a good thing. This is a “YA” Christian series. Christy doesn’t have a brain and gets herself into stupid situation after stupid situation. The Aunt is supposed to be the bad guy but most of the time I agreed with her especially when she told Christy to change out of an outfit described as “pink tunic that reached to her knees with a long skirt underneath it.” 

Todd, the “love interest” is this wannabe pastor who’s 17 years old. On Christy’s birthday, he takes her to Disneyland and says it’s also a celebration for his one-year birthday in Christ because he prayed for Jesus to come into his heart a year ago. Todd only ever opens his mouth to preach the Gospel. He’s really shady and will never tell Christy his true intentions with her and when she calls him out on it just tells her some gobbledigook about how she needs to wait. Get the heck out of here, Todd. Man up and give some definite answers. 

Christy also kissed some guy named Rick after her family randomly moved to California because her dad’s dairy farm in Wisconsin was…failing? I don’t know, there is next to no reason given for the move and I really need some context for people from rural Wisconsin picking up and moving across the country to California. 

I’ve been told there are about 85 books in this series and I “can’t wait” to find out what happens next to these cardboard cutout characters. 

The Walnut Creek Wish by the one and only Wanda E. Brunstetter.

I couldn’t bring myself to write a full review so here it is in a nutshell.

Rhonda and Jeff’s marriage is on the rocks and they don’t believe in God/don’t want to have a relationship with Him. They’ve been married for about 12 years and haven’t been able to have children despite being told there’s no reason they can’t have kids. Jeff tells Rhonda they should buy a house in the country so they can save their marriage. It wouldn’t be a big deal that they would both have to commute 45 minutes to their jobs in Akron, he tells her.  They find a house they love and buy it without selling their house in Akron. Rhonda is worried about this and rightfully so. Does this house buying save their marriage? Hardly.

Jeff loves antiques and has a fetish for old milk bottles. Rhonda fumes that if he would just sell all those antiques they would have plenty of money. Whatever. Orley and Lois from Apple Creek Announcement are in this book too and “help” this couple but don’t do anything so moving on. The story plods along at the pace of a turtle then Jeff’s restaurant goes up in flames! The cops think its arson and looking back, this plot was never resolved. While Jeff is tending to his burnt restaurant, Rhonda is left at home and has a coming to Jesus moment but doesn’t tell Jeff cause she thinks he would hate her since the one thing they always had in common was they had no need for God in their life. Twelve hours later Jeff has a weird dream about his dead mom and comes to Jesus as well and doesn’t tell Rhonda for the same reasons Rhonda gives. Rhonda gets sick and I thought she was pregnant, but she’s actually sick. But wait! Now she is pregnant! Jeff and Rhonda sit down to dinner, Jeff tells Rhonda of his faith, she does the same and reveals she’s pregnant. Then they buy a Bed and Breakfast, have the baby and hang up a plaque with a Psalm, I believe, written on it Orley gave them and Jeff tried to trash in the garage. There’s also a weird side plot of Rhonda’s mother and Jeff’s father dating each other. The moral of this story is: As long as you have a relationship with God everything will work out. 

Bamboo and Lace by Lori freaking Wick.

This book was beyond ridiculous but classic Lori. It was set in “modern times” so like 1987. Lily lives on this fake island or something in “Asia” with her dad who is a missionary. The thing with this island is that the women aren’t allowed to look the men in the eye – whether this is a regional or religious thing is never made clear. Lily was raised to not look men in the eye because her dad is really attracted to this way of thinking. Her brother writes a series of letters to her dad (and Lori wrote them all out for us) and finally it’s arranged for Lily to visit him for six weeks in Hawaii. 

She gets there, is amazed by every modern convenience, and then her brother is sent off to California for work and she gets dumped with this family of resort-owning believers who could not be more annoying. It’s a bunch of adult siblings, some of them married, living together and running the resort while the parents are off doing who-knows-what on the Big Island. Gabe is the man Lily ends up with and Gabe treated Lily like she was a child every time he spoke to her. Then there’s Ashton, a man-baby with a fiance named Deanne who is in school in California and all he does is pine away for her and act like it’s not a 4 hour plane ride to go see her and no, he never does go to visit her. He just waits for her to graduate then she comes to him and they marry. FREAKING ASHTON COULD HAVE JUST JUMPED ON A PLANE AND VISITED DEANNE INSTEAD OF WHINING ABOUT MISSING HER CONSTANTLY. All Bailey, the pregnant sister, did was sleep. Evan (her deadbeat husband) was disgusting and I got the vibe he had a thing for Lily.

Ashton is teaching Lily how to swim and she gets a sunburn after being in the sun for about an hour. She emerges from her bedroom for dinner and the room goes silent and it’s super weird. I think I’m just going to post a picture of actual book where this happened so you can just relish the madness because it’s so. good.

Here’s a delightful sample of Lori’s “squeaky clean” writing that the fans praise so highly:
Evan, talking about Lilly and Gabe at their honeymoon hotel: How do you think they’re doing?
Bailey: I don’t know. Lily was awfully tired.
Evan: We’ll just have to pray.
WHAT??? Why is it any of your business?!

Lily wears an outfit described as “white slacks with a navy blue patterned blouse tucked into them. The square neck had lace on it.” So, a grandma outfit. Gabe sees her in this and literally can’t handle it because I guess he saw the outline of her body? I just can’t. I can’t.

Then there was the horrifying scene of Gabe asking Lily to go swimming with him where he’s like, Evan and Bailey cavort in the pool and Ashton and Deanne will when they marry. We don’t have to cavort since we’re not married, but I need to get in this pool with you. 

Just writing that out made my skin crawl. Also he says that there’s a ribbon Evan and Bales of hay (yes that was her nickname) pin to the bulletin board so everyone knows when they’re cavorting in the pool, blech!! All I can say is that I would never get into that pool. 

Hilariously, Gabe says that when he had cancer in his early twenties, the doctor told him that he should do something to still be able to have kids. Gabe says: I didn’t do that thing. What? Why not!? What was the thing??

Gabe and Lily marry and it’s straight up gross as you can imagine. Eventually as in every Lori book we’re given a list with the names and ages of their children and I hate those epilogues with a passion. 

I read the weirdest Christian book ever called The Preacher’s Husband.

Nya and Greg are married and both preachers. Nya will sometimes get visions or prophecies from God. She’s “black” but has red hair and her grandfather is also her father in some weird twisted way. Nya goes to some conference and while under pressure to impress some big wig preachers, gives a fake prophecy to Felicia by saying everything will be alright. Felicia believes Nya and suddenly gets a job writing grants for an NBA team. Two minutes in on her first day a basketball player enters her office and after he says he doesn’t really like his wife she decides he was sent by God as part of the prophecy and has an affair with him. She gets pregnant but a doctor tells her the baby will be born with a medical condition and won’t live long after birth so the humane thing to do is to have an abortion. Felicia does so then finds out the doctor lied to her under the boyfriend’s orders. Bent on vengeance, she gets a one million dollar payout from the NBA team and burns the Player’s garage then she goes to ruin Nya’s life since it was totally the prophecy that made her make bad decisions. Right. Meanwhile, Nya gets a talk show gig and everything becomes over the top. Greg is all like, I don’t like this, but Nya is like, the money is helping our ministry so much! Then Greg does his Greg laugh and everything is right in the world. Felicia wiggles her way to Greg’s office by saying she’ll write a grant for some youth thing they’re doing. All the while this is part of her master plan to bring down Nya. I was never really sure what the plan was. Then Greg gets sick and a church mother calls Nya and tells her to get her black behind on home because Greg is sick and Felicia is trying to get her man. Nya goes home and bars Felicia from entering the house with chicken soup, she also quits doing her weird talk show and conferences. When Greg is up and at ’em, Felicia tells Greg about the false prophecy and makes up some stuff that Nya did to her. Greg gets all mad at Nya and then they head to a hotel for a wedding anniversary party the church is throwing for them. The church is also paying for a honeymoon suite?? While Greg and Nya are ogling the chocolate covered strawberries, Felicia knocks on the door. Nya opens it and Felicia stuffs a pistol in Nya’s stomach. Nya is gasping for breath and Felicia sticks the gun on Nya’s temple. Greg does some talking to distract Felicia and Nya grabs the bowl full of strawberries and brings it down on Felicia’s head, knocking her out. Now Greg knows Felicia is a bad person and the cops throw Felicia in a mental hospital where she watches a gospel show by a single preacher who needs a cane to walk around.