This post is for all of you who read Lurlene McDaniel books when you were a kid. She’s the one who wrote Six Months to Live, Goodbye Doesn’t Mean Forever, and assorted other books in which someone dies, usually of cancer, and either the dying teenager or the surviving teenage loved one Comes to Terms With Death, usually through thinly-veiled Jesus.
Anyway, I’m cataloging a cart full of new books, and we apparently had the misfortune to acquire her latest, Lifted Up By Angels. The back cover reads, I kid you not: “Follow the inspirational story of Leah Lewis-Hall and her friendship with the Amish family she met while in the hospital for cancer treatment. When Leah takes a summer job near their Amish community, she is happy to be near Ethan again. Ethan is now at the age when an Amish young man is allowed a taste of non-Amish life before committing to the rules of the adult community. Will Leah’s and Ethan’s feelings for each other overcome family obligations?”
Cancer, Jesus, rumspringa, and a faint whiff of sexual scandal, which will of course never be consummated. Truly, the woman is a master.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Mim // Oct 3, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Oh my, she’s still writing? It may have been the proto-goth in me at age 8 or so, but I found her books so Nobly Tragic. (missed the Jesus bits, though. Oblivious).
There’s a thesis to be written about how her books are child-wish-fulfillment dressed up as tragedy.
Screw that, though - I want to be snarky. Wanna read this book and tell us ALL about it? :>)
2 Martini-Corona // Oct 3, 2005 at 9:37 pm
It’s nice to know that Googling “Amish teens” and “cancer” will find something now. (The other night MPS posited that “psoriasis fantasy” would yield no hits. He was mistaken.)
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