The Englisher Book Review

The Englisher (Annie's People Series #2) by Beverly Lewis was my second in the series which I started right after the first one was finished.  I stopped at the very beginning to write the review for the first book before I got too far into it.  That was about as long a pause as I took because I was ready to find out what happened next in the adventure.  If you are planning on reading the first one, spoiler alert because this starts right where that one left off.

In this book, Annie is dealing with the pressure to join the Amish community and give up all things not supported by the church.  Annie's pen pal, Louisa, is visiting from the "fancy" world and enjoying the ease of Amish life and the close friendship with Annie and her family.  At the same time, Annie is forced to give up her art by her father after she is caught winning a art contest.  Her father asked her to give up her art for 6 months and see how she could do it.  An Englisher, Ben Martin, is becoming Annie's friend and she is falling for him and thinking about leaving the church so that she can do art and be with Ben.  Louisa suddenly leaves after falling for Sam, an Amish boy who is trying to decide whether to leave the Amish community, because she doesn't want to force his decision.  After Annie looses her art and Louisa, she moves in with her best friend, Ester, a shunned woman who is busy carrying for a family and farm while her husband is away getting help dealing with his history of guilt over the death of his younger brother when he was 8 years old.  It seems that things are going very wrong for Annie and her family and friends in this book but you still want to keep on reading to find out more.

The characters are so strong that you feel like you know the people and they are your neighbors.  There are always surprises in the choices that each person makes.  I loved it and was super glad that I picked up the third book to read next while I was at the library getting the second one!  I was enjoying the story and had trouble putting it down... Okay, it was impossible since while I am writing this review, I didn't even take a break to write this review before I started reading the third book from start to finish. Oops, I just couldn't stop even for a second to write the book review!!  I highly recommend the series and I hope that you get all three of them at the same time because you might have the same problem as me and read straight through from start to finish.  I hope that you pick these books and an other in the series at your local library or bookstore.  Let me know what you think of the great story and the great characters.