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Young adult romance explores
cross-cultural complications
Early in her career, Deb-
by Dodds caromed coast to
coast doing stage shows,
film and comedy improv.
Now settled in Portland,
this multi-talented writer
and performer has been de-
voting her energy to writing
her first Young Adult novel.
For subject matter,
Dodds hearkened back to
her own adolescence in
Lancaster County, Penn-
sylvania, home to a large
Amish community. The
story she comes up with,
“Amish Guys Don’t Call,”
draws on some of the
cross-cultural juxtapositions
she observed when she was
growing up.
The Amish refer to
everyone outside of their
community as “English,”
no matter what their real
ethnicity. So it just goes
to figure that this book’s
“English” teen protagonist,
recently arrived in Lancast-
er after her parents’ divorce,
falls for an Amish guy.
At first, Samantha Stone-
song doesn’t even realize
it. A closeted nerd, Sam has
been feeling pressure from
her new circle of friends
to prove that she can find a
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cute boyfriend. She’s never
had a boyfriend before, but
she can’t admit this to her
group of super-cool friends
without being ostracized.
So it seems to be a stroke
of good luck when Zach, a
“mature” guy already out
of school, singles her out as
the girl he is interested in.
She does notice that
Zach has a few quaint
quirks, but as they get to
know one another and
really like and trust each
other, Zach confesses to her
that he has been keeping
his Amish roots a secret.
He has been engaging in
Rumspringa, the traditional
rite of passage that allows
Amish teens a period of
greater freedom before they
commit to the Amish way
of life as adults.
But now Zach is reluc-
tant to return to his family’s
farm. Instead, he wants to
go to college. As a result of
these decisions, he is being
formally shunned by his
family and community.
Sam has some secrets of
her own. Since her parents’
divorce, her mother has
become fairly promiscuous,
while her father has been
completely out of touch.
It is also stressful to be
in the most popular clique
in school; Sam is always
worried that her new friends
will reject her if they dis-
cover she’s a brainiac and
a virgin, so she tries to be
someone she is not in order
to fit in.
As her anxiety escalates,
she returns to a bad habit
she developed in her old
hometown: shoplifting to
relieve stress.
Dodds writes with
honesty and humor about
this point in Sam’s life.
She does a nice job of
developing the unlikely
romance between Zach and
Sam, and she successfully
creates dimensionality in all
of her characters. And she
incorporates some of the
realities of today’s youth
Crossword Answer
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— cyberbullying, substance
use, single-parent fami-
lies and minimal parental
oversight — without being
heavy-handed.
Dodds has more trouble
handling the resolution of
these story lines — hence
a rather ungainly pile-up of
an ending — but, overall,
“Amish Guys Don’t Call” is
a lively and appealing read.
The Bookmonger is
Barbara Lloyd McMichael,
who writes this weekly col-
umn focusing on the books,
authors and publishers
of the Pacific Northwest.
Contact her at bkmonger@
nwlink.com.
“Amish Guys
Don’t Call”
By Debby
Dodds
Blue Moon
Publishers
278 pp
$19.99
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