My understanding of the amish romance genre is that it's generally written by christians who want Exotic and Different Romance... but not TOO Exotic and Different.
in my country we say “from the pan to the grill” lmao and i think it’s appropriate 💀 i’d like to see a whole video explaining this phenomenon (i knew nothing about it before this vid)
You usually can’t just join them out of nowhere lol. They are very, very selective. Tbh, the fact that she wrote a book would probably make her ineligible for a lot of those communities.
@@HelloCompanion That's not exactly true. It may be fore certain sects, but not universally. I know a woman whose family converted and were Amish for many years. I think she had all but the last of her nine children while in an Amish community. She was raised Catholic and her husband was an Atheist, and they decided to become Amish. However, she turned out to be pretty lazy and they kicked their whole family out. They are no longer Amish, but now they identify as Mennonite (which is a whole other ball of wax).
I used to live near an Amish community that was pretty relaxed, and it was always hilarious seeing the Amish drive their horse and buggy through the Panera drive-thru
My uncle owns a construction business with some Amish people, and they all ride their buggies to his house to plug in all the batteries for their power tools lol
I live in Northwestern Pennsylvania. I can confirm it’s humorous to see the Amish just casually going around my local Aldi and Walmart, sometimes I even see them out at the Chinese buffet which is something I never thought I would see from the Amish.
oh! one of my college writing classes had a unit on amish romance. basically they’re as big as they are bc they’re romances with a guarantee of no smut. they’re for the women who like romance but would never touch fifty shades, essentially. I’m sure there are lots of non-amish clean romances lmao, it’s just that the amish ones have kind of cornered the market
I think that's because it's hard to find clean adult romances on social media. A lot of clean romances are for teens. As soon as a romance book says 'adult' you can almost always expect some sort of spice.
Ngl as someone who avoid romance books because I hate smut I can't read it , and I don't think I should force myself to do so It seem quite logical Hard to find clean tomances theses days But I am not desesperate enough to read amiss romances lol
@@katgreer6113 yep that’s exactly the reason! like imagine you’re 40 yrs old, a mom of three, with a full-time job, and you love romance but don’t enjoy smut-do you really want to search through the romance section and google each title to check? or do you just want to pick a title that sounds mildly interesting from the amish section and then go about the rest of your busy day?
“I dont really like adult twins, you should grow out of that” LMAOOO update: said this to an adult twin’s face and he was sooo confused yall asking me to explain myself and all i had was “its childish??”
I find the romanticizing of the Amish interesting. We have a sizable Amish community where I live and they hate us English lol. And they are consistently busted for running full puppy mills. Make great jam though.
Not to mention the sex and drug trafficking and all the other sex crimes 😬 if you talk to anyone who's left the amish, they all say the same thing: it's a cult! I don't get how people will easily say scientology or the IBLP is a cult but not the Amish?
I work at a used bookstore in the south and we see a lot of Christian fiction (we call it ChriFi, like SciFi), there are *unending* amounts of Amish romances, it's crazy. The other big chrifi genres are "people in a wholesome small town" (very Hallmark), historical romances with questionable depictions of oppressed groups, and murder mysteries (about half take place in a Hallmark Town and feature cats and/or baked goods). I will also say, 99% of the people buying books like this are 65+ , I think the target audience is dying off 😅
I work cataloguing books for libraries and yea Christian fiction is huge! I also find there are a lot of children involved in them 😂 like adopted child or single widowed parent
Oooh, don't forget the massive genre of Historical Christian Romance!! The amount of books set in the 1800's that I read back in my church girl era was crazy!
Fun video! I learned recently that Amish people largely find Amish romances embarrassing. And they are mostly written by Evangelical Christians because it’s realistic that the characters don’t have sex and are super devout. 🐴
The double twins romance is crazy, what do you mean he invites his girlfriend to meet his parents for the first time, with full intention of breaking up with her??? how is that a good idea???
I was reading Amish romance as a kid because i read well above my grade and ran out of options in the small library at my christian school/church. It stunted my emotional maturity and understanding of relationships. Neat 🤘 I think reading spicy novels by authoes that understand consent wouldve been better.
13:17. The reason the adults treat the girls like children even though they're 21 is because in those hyper religious communities as a young woman if you're unmarried you're basically equivalent to a child
Or women will rush to marriage to escape their family / attain some independence. Often when they stay home they are given a lot of household responsibilities to prepare for wifehood@@taylorgayhart9497
@@taylorgayhart9497 it honestly depends on the community, religion, parents, etc. if their daughter feels like too much of a financial burden or something like that they’re more likely to marry them off young because then they live elsewhere and are the responsibility of a man who isn’t her father. if they’re very poor with tons of kids it seems to them like the best idea is for all their preteen/teen daughters to get married to a man who lives nearby and can financially take care of her. often impoverished families in these hyper religious communities will just find a man a bit wealthier than they are (which isn’t hard for him if he has a job but no children) who is willing to financially support their daughter. it’s not right i’ve just seen that happen a lot. some simply marry off their teenage daughter cus they believe they’re grown at like 15/16 years old. but some hyper religious parents are particularly overprotective and if financially able to they’ll keep their daughter from being married until her 20s.
'go to walmart with your horse and buggy' is so funny to me; i grew up a stone's throw from one of the world's biggest amish communities, and i always described the area to people as having a horse tie section at the walmart parking lot. having a villain kidnap an amish girl is in REALLY poor taste. there was a murder-kidnapping of a lancaster amish girl in 2020-1 that devastated the local community.
@@Adreenarizal I've been trying to find the plot of Judgment and MErcy but apparently, nobody else has been interested enough to read it and leave a plot summary, gosh darn it
I went to “ollies cheap stuff” for the first time, and while looking through the books trying to find anything i had even heard of.. there was a whole isle, of JUST these amish romances… every single cover was an amish woman.. i was tempted to get one
I grew up in a conservative Christian household, I read many an Amish romance in middle school and early high school, some Beverly Lewis even. Thankfully I had other influences to show me the flaws of such a close mined way of thinking and got away from that. In my mid 20s though I was diagnosed with a degenerative muscle condition (Ehlers Danlos Syndrom) as I lost more and more mobility my mental health got worse and worse. I finally found an amazing therapist to help me through where I was. It was quite eye opening to see how the things I was taught the thought patterns and prejudices were actually what was effecting the way I thought about or dealt with this diagnosis even years after I had got away from the religious aspect. I’m in my 40s now and use a wheelchair full time, I still attend therapy to get through the emotional trauma but I’m in a much better place mentally. I feel like alot of those authors thought they could “sugar coat” it but where completely clueless as to how that could actually impact someone’s way of thinking in a harmful way making them feel “less than”. Great video as always. ❤
This is such an amazing comment to read as a 24 year old recently diagnosed with EDS, and also grew up reading these books ha! Now I use a rollator or cane, but it is good to see another EDS person in “the wild” of the internet.
@@curiouslittlefrog Everyone’s journey is different, I have talked to many people with different types of EDS and different backgrounds and every single experience is different and challenging in their own way. While dealing with all the physical changes and challenges to our bodies we have to also make sure we are addressing the toll it takes mentally as well. Stay strong and take care of yourself! ❤️
I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania aka I'm surrounded by Amish and my grandparents are very Christian (not Amish) but they used to get me like 2-3 Amish romances every year for my birthday when I was a kid. I felt bad getting rid of them so they lived under my bed for many many years.
My grandma is an extremely avid reader of amish romances and I will say the appeal is really just the prevalence of religion in the romance aspect with nothing happening between the love interests beyond MAYBE a kiss or some hand holding. I still remember when I got in trouble with her cause she read my library book that had the precursor to sex in it with the characters deciding they werent ready yet. I got a lecture for that. I was in 8th grade.
As someone who lives somewhere with an Amish population, they don't exactly have a good reputation for how some treat animals. Ngl the only place I've seen them working has been the Amish scratch 'n dent store, though I have seen them shopping at Walmart, grocery stores, and even Dollar General
They seem to get around for being so isolated from the rest of the world. I've seen them black Friday shopping in Hobby Lobby, at the zoo, and even a Ronald McDonald house I volunteered in. Interesting to see how relaxed some of the communities are.
The Amish community varies a lot from town to town some are very conservative and don’t even use electricity etc others go to the beach or shop in “normal” stores
In Philadelphia, they have several food kiosks in the Reading Terminal Market. It’s trippy to see them alongside the Indians, the East Asians, the Afro-Caribbean, the African, the Latino food options ❤️
@imapotato7391 my parents actually used to get paid to drive them places, bcs it's illegal for them to drive but there's the loophole if you just so happen to be in a vehicle
As someone who grew up amish-mennonite & left it (now atheist & queer), just to work in a library where every WASPy woman is checking these out bcs they're 'so romantic'.......sigh. the romanticized lifestyle of agricultural cults is so fucked
LOL. So there's this place in SoCal called YellowDeli. It has some of the greatest food..just oh my god. But it's run by a cult. So when you go there...They don't really pressure you but they give you pamphlets and such. I'm only sharing because I laghed so hard at the twins working at a diner. It's just a way to spread their religion. Anyways. YellowDeli slaps. If you're in SoCal you should go. The sandwiches are so insane.
There’s Yellow Deli’s all over the world, ran by the same cult. There’s some in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Japan, Spain, UK, and 18 across the US. Did have to google that but yeah, now you know :)
As a twin ( fraternal even though my twin and i are 99.99 the same dna wise ) the twin fetish in literature is so icky. I dont know a better way to explain it. So many of these books just irck me so much, cause i know not every twin set has the same realationship with their twin like i do but they just be making these unrealistic storys and unessary drama, its just is so icky to me, again lol
It always comes down to that.. no matter how pure or saintly the organization is supposed to be. That abuse in power, the control, and sexual exploitation usually directed at women or absolutely anyone at risk. Just abusive power and teachings that train those to simply receive it all.
The way i was immediately more intetested in the first book as soon as someone DIED and she didnt even give me the tea on the second book 😭 miss girl PLEASE i need to know what happened but i will not be purchasing an amish romance
Omg this reminds me of this book series I read as a kid that was in my house, I assume my mom bought at some point, called the Angels trilogy by Lurlene Mcdaniel. It's about this woman who starts dating an Amish guy after meet-cuting him when his little sister is in the hospital?? There's a cancer-cured-by-a-literal-angel plot arc and also it gets really sad??? And from what I remember does not have a happy ending it was wild
I love those books as a kid. Haha. Truly obsessed. But then I left my bind-up copy in a car all day and the glue melted, so it is now lost to time. RIP
I'm sorry but that sounds about as romantic as having a first date at a refugee camp! Are there a lot of people who get sappy and/or aroused by being sad? Is that a kink I'm unaware of?
Yes, if you really want a clean "Christian romance" try A Name Unknown by Roseanna White. Other clean/closed door romances that are normal good books are: The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams (clean sports romance) , Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams (closed door bodyguard romance), The Bodyguard by Katherine Center (bodyguard romance). Also The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley is general fiction with a clean and sweet romantic sub plot.
I’m so excited to watch this. I actually have a huge Amish community where I live so we have a lot of Amish romances at like, Walmart and I’ve always been curious 😂
I know some stuff about the Amish because there's a pretty big community near me, they run a local farmers market. And I see them at the discount book store. Some Amish communities agree that it's okay to do things with electronics as far as what you need to get by in the outside, usually cash registers to get money, lightbulbs and air conditioning for customers, etc. Those kinds tend to say that you just need to make sure the community itself is godly. But yeah, they vote, they engage in commerce. The big problem is just that if like... If you want to leave, you're excommunicated. So, no talking to your family, no safety net, you're basically orphaned. You need to apply for a social security number, learn to drive, figure out how a phone works, get an email, and that's all Really Hard when it was all forbidden and you have no one to help you. Just like coming out of a cult, being cut off from outside supports is always hard, whether your experience before was good or not. (Of course, usually those that leave didn't have a good time, hence the leaving.) All this to say, the Amish make really great lemon drops and I love eating them.
13:18 for traditionalist christian communities it makes lots of sense. I dated a 25 (I was 26) year old guy from a very conservative evangelical family and when it didn’t work out, his parents stated that we are obviously too immature for a romantic relationship still. Worst experience ever.
Anyways, one thing I am curious about in regards of the final book: So the main character comitted murder? How come she works for the police and they didn't threw her in jail for murder? Like, she should be in prison for murdering her husband, even if he was abusive.
I love how all the covers of Amish romance novels are basically indistinguishable because they all dress more or less the same (with variation in colors, mostly) and live on farms with fields around them, so the visual language is extremely limited. Like if you're getting real spicy you might add a colorful quilt or something.
I was reading a pretty neat Regency romance/mystery book when the male love interest randomly started preaching about loving God and being a good Christian… turns out it was a Christian romance masquerading as only Regency! Had me fucked up lmfao
We have an Amish shelf at my library! It’s basically because we catalog a lot of donations, and I guess we got lots of donations like that. To be fair, we also have a cozy mystery shelf for books like Agatha Christie so we’re into niche sub genres.
Alright, I looked up the ending to The Rose Trilogy. IDK how accurate this is because I just skimmed goodreads reviews. (Side note, apparently even some fans of the author and the genre thought these books were dull). Rose is courted by a third guy but ends up with the best friend who comes back and is ready to commit to being Amish. Sister (Hen?) is in divorce proceedings in book two, but by the end of her story, she and her husband work things out. Surprise! He converts to Amish and they have lots of babies. IDK how many "lots" is.
i was waiting for a video like this!! i’ve been reading the occasional amish romance ever since i first discovered that they existed lolol. such a niche genre
I'm sorry. Are you telling me that this book tried to say an Amish man was A MARINE? That's not a thing. That's never been a thing. Militarism is, like, no-no number one. Amish people are very anti-military, even anti-government. No Amish person would just chill in the Marine Corps and thar would be cool.
OMG i've read the first one, i think my grandparents got it for me. I had another one (don't remember where i got it) but this Amish family's mom dies so the oldest sister kinda takes over the role and raises her like 6 siblings but her dad is never appreciative of her, flash forward her youngest brother ends up getting kidnapped (i think this guy and his wife can't have kids so he just yoinks the baby), it was wild, it's The Storekeeper's Daughter by Wanda E. Brunstetter
The way the stars had to align for me to stumble across a video made by someone with very nearly the same name as me talking about authors that I was peer pressured into reading back when my family was under the fundie influence....
ive worked in libraries since 2019, since day 1 ive been seeing a high interest so much that my first dept had a section JUST for amish romance. never once did i read these, but i wanted to know soooo badly so tysm for doing the leg work on this one
Just the video title has me screaming with laughter. Also my grandma loves this stuff, and lonely cowherd/some kind of fainting ingenue novels. Girl we've all seen "The Horse Whisperer."
there’s a large amish population where i live, and like. half the people i work with are amish. the romanticism of it is strange though, it’s definitely not all sunshine and rainbows lol. but if you look even slightly outside of the norm (ex. brightly dyed hair) they will STARE YOU DOWNNNN it’s so uncomfortable but their whoopie pies are BANGING
My family has a business in taking the Amish places (usually smaller like Walmart or other Amish houses, but sometimes like State Hospitals) and let me tell you, most of them are only Amish because that’s how they’ve been raised and they don’t want to be disowned (which happens if you leave the community). Sometimes (and by that I mean every weekend), they will call and ask for cases and cases of alcohol lol. They have like frat levels of parties and alcohol at those things.
I've seen so many of these amish romance books at my local library! 😭 I was wondering why there were so many because as far as I know we don't have any amish communities nearby and I didn't understand who these were supposed to be for lol
I love that the Amish just exist. Not gonna lie I do get why people romanticise it, especially when they dont look any deeper than the general vibe. I too would like to wear old timey clothes and be removed from technology (for a while I could not handle it long term which is probably some brand of sad😂) Im sure there are chill Amish people who are just kinda doing their thing? But while I like the concept of being away from tech and old timey living (bc its both fascinating and just a vibe, which yeah shallow ik) I am very not on board with old timey MINDSETS. Like can we just dress like its ye olde days without being like God fearingTM? Also modern medicine is really cool.
There's a tendancy for both sides of the political spectrum to romanticize the Amish, because everyone understands the surface appeal Whether that comes in the form of idealizing a trad-wife homesteader, or a cottage core hippy who might or might not be a lesbian depending on whether or not you are. Modern life is tough, so the idea of getting away from the stress of technology and just having a nice place where you can be close to nature and life is more simple appeals to a lot of different types of people. So the Amish already have that going for them. For the right-wing there's the traditional values and gender roles aspect that also appeals to them. And for the left there's the pacifism and relative lack of political involvement. You don't see the Amish picketing abortion clinics or PRIDE events, eventhough they absolutely do believe in patriarchy and that homosexuality is a sin, so it's easy for even people who oppose everything they believe in to see them as harmless and even as 'the good type of fundamentalists"
"Oh no I'm not almish now I've to wear makeup every day" like tf many people don't wear makeup it's not that big of a deal there's something called free will lol.
I read the first book years ago bc my ex mother in law had it on her bookshelf 🤦🏻♀️🤣 the last book reminds me of the true crime case of the Amish guy that had his wife killed. He was wild. He was on an Amish dating site and everything.
I hope you see this comment as this video's a month old by now, but I love listening to RU-vid videos in the background as I am working on one of my art projects and I am sewing a top for myself as we speak! Let me explain an old grandma's trick that will help you out a lot and save money when sewing. You might have heard about sewing patterns already, but honestly you don't need to purchase those. If you have some old clothing that still fits, cut them apart carefully at the places where they are stitched together. You can use those pieces of fabric as a sewing pattern. It saves you money, its kind of recycling your old clothes and are way less likely to get damaged considering sewing patterns are made of paper so the number of times it can be re-used is also higher. I learnt this trick about a decade ago when I was a teenager taking sewing lessons from a granny, and I honestly thank the old ladies for teaching me stuff like this. I've literally learnt how to make a coat based by cutting apart an old bathrobe XD
I'm only 8 minutes in and the number of times you said sin is giving me brain damage. How you managed to read these books is beyond me. You are far stronger than I'll ever be. I'll just go back to reading my gay Victorian smut like the sinful sinny sinner I am.
I'm not American and I'm not religous (plus I think more than half of the people in my country does not have a religion) I have heard about the Amish people though and their lifestyle I guess? So this video was so fascinating to me! The idea of a religious romance is so wild and hilarious(I mean no offense to those who enjoy it) 😂 I had to pause the video several times because you made me laugh so hard lol 😆
My absolute favorite part of living right next to a huge amish community is constantly seeing their horse and buggies at Dollar General. One time, I saw a very small old amish woman buying at least 20 cartons of eggs.
Also i think sometimes people get Amish and German Baptist confused….bc they also wear bonnets and such but shop in regular stores and even live in cities. Amish are generally much more isolated
i got really into learning about evangelical christianity from an outside or a deconstructed perspective liek from fundie fridays or jordan and mckay, and something they've noted is that evangelicals kinda have an obsession with the amish and romanticize them a lot? have to wonder if these were written in that vein of thought
This has really just confirmed that my hate towards amish romances is justifyed cause i hate these lololol. Love the video, video is 13/10. The books i hate. Just with my whole body.
I LOVE Keira Andrews (the author of the gay amish book) but "A forbidden rumspringa" was her only book from her I ever DNFed 😂 too much religious trauma flashbacks for my mental health and the vibe was just weird 😅
