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Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
- A Memoir of Going Home
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
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Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
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Editorial reviews
This tartly told memoir with its tenderhearted core and luscious detailings of tangy borschts and double-decker Zwiebach buns slathered with homemade rhubarb jam is an honest, philosophical chronicle of poet and English professor Rhoda Janzen's return home at 43, to her Mennonite family, after being chewed up by a soap operatic sequence of very real personal calamities.
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress begins when Janzen's botched hysterectomy leaves her Velcro-strapping a urine collection bag to her thigh for six months. Just as she's snapped back from incontinence, Nick (her hunky, frequently drunk, charming, bipolar, and verbally abusive husband of 15 years) leaves her for Bob, a man he's met on Gay.com. That same week, a tipsy teen driver crashes Janzen's car on a snowy road. She ends up with two broken ribs and a fractured clavicle. "Under circumstances like these, what was�a gal to do?" she asks. "I'll tell you what I did. I went home to the Mennonites."
What transcends Mennonite in a Little Black Dress from a series of zany essays on "Menno" culture (a capella singalongs, raisins, and sweater vests) is Janzen's deeply nurtured respect for her community. She observes that, like the rest of us, Mennonites struggle with bratty children, substance abuse, dieting, and cheesy first dates an admission that opens up her quest to re-learn happiness into a universally felt exploration.
Janzen's spiritual leader turns out to be her sunny, irreverent mother, Mary, whose bouncy perceptions of sorrow, death, marriage between first cousins, and bodily functions she casually breaks wind at Kohl's while inspecting bundt pans end up revealing how intimately she grasps the true order of things. Hillary Huber is the narrator of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress and her droll, throaty voiceover perfectly pitches to Janzen's acerbic wit and academic background. A master quick-change artist, Huber so nimbly spins into bubbly, chattery Mary Janzen that when she conspiratorially shares, "A relaxed pothead sounds nice", about Rhoda's latest fling, it registers as mildly as "Please pass the Cotletten, dear." Nita Rao
Publisher's summary
The same week her husband of 15 years ditches her for a guy he met on Gay.com, a partially inebriated teenage driver smacks her VW Beetle head-on. Marriage over, body bruised, life upside-down, Rhoda does what any sensible 43-year-old would do: She goes home.
But hers is not just any home. It's a Mennonite home, the scene of her painfully uncool childhood and the bosom of her family: handsome but grouchy Dad, plain but cheerful Mom. Drinking, smoking, and slumber parties are nixed; potlucks, prune soup, and public prayer are embraced. Having long ago left the faith behind, Rhoda is surprised when the conservative community welcomes her back with open arms and offbeat advice. She discovers that this safe, sheltered world is the perfect place to come to terms with her failed marriage and the choices that both freed and entrapped her.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 237
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 195
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Story4 out of 5 stars 196
How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.
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2 out of 5 stars
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big disappointment
- By Kirsten on 04-12-12
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The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4 out of 5 stars 98
It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
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Bitter in the Mouth
- By: Monique Truong
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
Growing up in the small town of Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in the 70’s and 80’s, Linda believes that she is profoundly different from everyone else, including the members of her own family. “What I know about you, little girl, would break you in two” are the cruel, mysterious last words that Linda’s grandmother ever says to her.
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2 out of 5 stars
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"Tasting Words" made this hard to hear!
- By Kate Anderson on 11-06-11
By: Monique Truong
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 720
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 630
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Story4 out of 5 stars 633
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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Why I Hate Green Beans
- And Other Confessions About Relationships, Reality TV, and How We See Ourselves
- By: Lincee Ray
- Narrated by: Lincee Ray
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
If there is one thing Lincee Ray has learned over the years, it's that the majority of women on the planet struggle with insecurities. Our skinny jeans mock us. Our just-trying-to-help mothers are just driving us crazy. Our social media feeds taunt us with everyone else's picture-perfect lives. It's enough to send you on a gummy-bear bender while binge-watching Friends reruns and not showering for a week. Lincee knows. She's been there. Right there, in fact. Gummy bears and all.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect in every way!
- By Anonymous User on 10-19-22
By: Lincee Ray
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Shanda
- A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy
- By: Letty Cottin Pogrebin
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
The word "shanda" is defined as shame or disgrace in Yiddish. This book, Shanda, tells the story of three generations of complicated, intense twentieth-century Jews for whom the desire to fit in and the fear of public humiliation either drove their aspirations or crushed their spirit. In her deeply engaging, astonishingly candid memoir, author and activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin exposes the fiercely-guarded lies and intricate cover-ups woven by dozens of members of her extended family.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully Written!
- By Adele Aron Greenspun on 01-12-23
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Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?
- Confessions of a Gay Dad
- By: Dan Bucatinsky
- Narrated by: Dan Bucatinsky
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 866
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 795
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 794
In 2005, Dan Bucatinsky and his partner, Don Roos, found themselves in an L.A. delivery room, decked out in disposable scrubs from shower cap to booties, to welcome their adopted baby girl - launching their frantic yet memorable adventures into fatherhood. Two and a half years later, the same birth mother - a heroically generous, pack-a-day teen with a passion for Bridezilla marathons and Mountain Dew - delivered a son into the couple’s arms.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Parenting Book with Humor and Heart
- By The Reading Date on 02-05-14
By: Dan Bucatinsky
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Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
- A Memoir
- By: Nicole Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicole Hardy
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This Book Spoke to Me
- By Allison on 04-08-14
By: Nicole Hardy
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It Happens Every Spring
- By: Catherine Palmer, Gary Chapman
- Narrated by: Jill Mueller
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
The first in a new series, Four Seasons, takes us to Deepwater Cove, a small community on the shore of the Lake of the Ozarks, where we're introduced to four couples in different stages of life. It Happens Every Spring centers on Brenda, a lonely wife, and Steve, a go-getter real estate agent, in the mid-winter of their relationship. When a stranger appears at their door one night, change blows through their house and their marriage.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing book!
- By Rad on 10-07-22
By: Catherine Palmer, and others
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Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 200
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 179
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 178
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
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The Very Worst Missionary
- A Memoir or Whatever
- By: Jamie Wright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Lambert
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 316
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 278
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 281
After finding Jesus at a suburban megachurch, young Jamie Wright trades in the easy life on the cul-de-sac for the green fields of Costa Rica. There, along with her husband, kids, and the family cat, she intends to serve God and make converts. But she soon loses faith and falls into a funk of cynicism and despair. Fortunately, Knives the cat is there, looking on with just enough disinterest to make her laugh...and dare her to try another way. That other way turns out to be telling the truth. She launches a renegade blog, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, which wins a large following.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Didn’t like the book
- By Jonathan on 04-17-20
By: Jamie Wright
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Laughing Without an Accent
- Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad
- By: Firoozeh Dumas
- Narrated by: Firoozeh Dumas
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 304
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 175
In the best-selling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the human condition. (Hint: It may have to do with brushing and flossing daily.)
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1 out of 5 stars
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Sigh
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Firoozeh Dumas
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I Can't Complain
- (All Too) Personal Essays
- By: Elinor Lipman
- Narrated by: Elinor Lipman
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
Elinor Lipman has populated her fictional universe with characters so utterly real that we feel like they're old friends. Now she shares an even more intimate world with us - her own - in essays that offer a candid, charming take on modern life. Looking back and forging ahead, she considers the subjects that matter most: childhood and condiments, long marriage and solo living, career and politics. Here you'll find the lighthearted: a celebration of four decades of All My Children, a reflection on being Jewish in heavily Irish-Catholic Lowell on St. Patrick's Day, a hilariously unflinching account of her tiptoe into online dating.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fabulous!
- By Louise on 09-15-19
By: Elinor Lipman
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Ordinary Light
- A Memoir
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 162
Tracy K. Smith has a fairly typical upbringing in suburban California: the youngest in a family of five children raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But after spending a summer in Alabama at her grandmother's home, she returns to California with a new sense of what it means for her to be Black: from her mother's memories of picking cotton as a girl in her father's field for pennies a bushel to her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simply spoken - poetic
- By CarolynneRHarris on 04-27-15
By: Tracy K. Smith
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Too Close to the Falls
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant and funny and touching.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-07-19
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May We Be Forgiven
- By: A. M. Homes
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4 out of 5 stars 139
May We Be Forgiven, a darkly comic novel of 21st-century domestic life, stars Harold Silver, a historian who's always been jealous of his successful brother, George. But when the hot-tempered George is institutionalized for committing a violent act, Harold finds himself comforting his brother's wife and children. What follows is a scathing examination of a family so fractured it may never be whole again.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Give this one a try!
- By JWB on 02-13-13
By: A. M. Homes
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Isle of Palms
- A Lowcountry Tale, Book 3
- By: Dorothea Benton Frank
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 962
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 879
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 873
Dorothea Benton Frank is a treasure of American letters with numerous New York Times best-sellers to her credit and a portfolio full of critical acclaim. “Mixing high drama and high jinks” ( Booklist), her third Lowcountry novel follows the fortunes of the dysfunctional Abbot family. Looking to set her life aright, Anna Lutz Abbot returns to her South Carolina lowcountry hometown. And as she attempts to right past wrongs, Anna receives help and support from a quirky cast of lovable locals sure to endear themselves to listeners.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A feel good story
- By Sheryl on 02-04-13
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Liberating Paris
- A Novel
- By: Linda Bloodworth Thomason
- Narrated by: Cynthia Darlow
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Woodrow McIlmore, the town's golden boy and local gynecologist, is married to his beautiful high school sweetheart, Milan, and seems by all appearances to be leading the perfect life with his two children and extended family and friends. But when Wood's daughter announces that she is smitten with a college classmate and intends to marry him, her parents are stunned.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deeply moving, a great listen
- By Cynthia on 11-27-05
What listeners say about Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Smalltowngirl
- 05-16-13
You can't take the Mennonite out of the girl
Janzen's observations on her Mennonite roots initially seem overly harsh, but slowly reveal a love and appreciation for her family as well as their traditions. This is a tender and funny memoir rather than a shaming tell-all.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Maureen Leach
- 05-30-10
Big Disappointment
Expected to get a view of the Mennonites. A terribly boring and inane story instead. Sorry I didn't believe other poor reviews.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Laura
- 01-15-14
I wasn't great.
Even by the title you can get a glimpse into the mindset of the author, that she is too grand for her awkward 'anti-cool' Mennonite upbringing.
It made me wince with embarrassment as she seemed to underline, again and again how vulgar and frumpy her family culture is compared to the educated and sophisticated circles in which she moves now.
The juxtaposition was amusing, (after her marriage fails, she returns to the bosom of her Mennonite family for some recovery time). However, I felt it got tired.
The plot - being a memoir, was not exciting, and I was bored.
Couldn't wait for it to end.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- I Hate Everything ;0)
- 12-17-13
Truly disappointing
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
I have no idea
Has Mennonite in a Little Black Dress turned you off from other books in this genre?
No, just books by this author
What aspect of Hillary Huber’s performance would you have changed?
She did well with what she had to work with.
What character would you cut from Mennonite in a Little Black Dress?
Rhoda
Any additional comments?
My daughter was assigned to read this book in her senior lit class. I try to get whatever she reads so that we can discuss, (our little two man book club of sorts). After Zeitoun and the Kite Runner (both great books) I was ready for something lighter. To the point this book was just awful. The author came across pretentious and condescending. Kids have something they call a compliment sandwich, wrap two weak compliments around a scathing criticism to mitigate the impact of the critique. The food taste good, smells like fart/looks like vomit and is a hit at trendy parties. This is how the author chose to deal with the cultural traditions of the Mennonites. This book served as a soap box on which the author could expound her revised beliefs and mock the religion and tradition that formed her. Folks..There is no story here. This book is a rudderless boat without direction or destination. Just a disjointed retelling. Their is no humor here, just a dry attempt of infusing her black cloud with sun rays that do not penetrate.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lars
- 11-20-12
A look at the value of your roots
Any additional comments?
A humorous look at life with a poignant re-evaluation of early values and how they fit and apply to her current life.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- jennifer
- 08-09-23
Highly recommend
Loved it! Rhonda’s humor and tenderness as well as the insights into the Mennonite culture & life in general made it a hard to stop listening to. Well done!
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Casey
- 11-07-09
Neither Memmonite nor black dress...
I have a friend who is a former Mennonite, so I downloaded this book and we read it together. We both agreed to stop listening to it around 3 hours, 30 minutes. I was hoping for insights and my friend was hoping for humorous, relatable stories about being Mennonite. Instead, we got stupid stories that mean nothing. For instance, Janzen goes on and on about playing a board game with her niece. In another part, she goes on and on about having a urine bag taped to her leg. It left you constantly wondering that any of this has to do with being a former Mennonite and when the darn black dress is going to make an appearance.
Save your credits and skip this book.
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7 people found this helpful