This was an interesting book, but I found the letters to the saints to be distracting and awkward. I saw the sequence of events leading to the commune, living there, and leaving, but not really how it helped her journey to get to know Christ better.

I found this book to be a refreshingly honest look at Christian community. Peterson and her family join a communal farm, and she takes us on an insiders journey of the joy and pain. I've idealized the communal lifestyle, so Peterson's realism was important to me. She shared about the heartache of friends leaving their community, about the hardships of farming, and about the harshness of unmet expectations. I also appreciated her vulnerability in sharing about her father's illness and death.

Intermingled with her story, Peterson composes letters to saints, including St Francis, Dorothy Day, Simone Weil, and Clare of Assisi. I appreciated her openness in sharing how foreign these saints lives can feel to our post-modern sensibilities, but also her thoroughness and timeliness to really wrestle with the saints' messages and lives. I felt like I finished the book with a better understanding of who those saints were.

This story of meeting God inside and outside of community is honest, refreshing and good.

I appreciate Peterson's faith story, so I couldn't wait to read this one. The story is good, and I liked the format of the book too. She tells about her family's experience living in an intentional Mennonite community, but also writes letters to saints she's learning about in her faith explorations. I loved this one!

I found this memoir interesting. The author gave a good overview of the live Francis of Assisi and a few other Christian mystics. I enjoyed her honest account of the joy and struggle of living in an intentional community and living a life of hospitality. She shares some wisdom and insight.
I received this book free from the publisher for the purpose of review.

This book was an interesting read. I loved reading how the saints tied in with the author's personal spiritual journey.

What do Francis of Assisi, Simone Weil, and Dorothy Day have to say to a midwestern farmer's family in the early 21st century? Christiana Peterson's "Mystics and Misfits" explores how these Christian figures retain their powerful witness even in a context that is very different from their own. As a displaced city-dweller who has reluctantly found himself in a rural farming community, I find that I can relate to Peterson on a personal level. Overall, the book is refreshing and stimulating, and well-worth the read.