A Debutiful Best Debut Short Story Collection of 2025
In these eleven stories, a Mennonite minister鈥檚 daughter moves from a youthful, exuberant understanding of her family鈥檚 faith toward religious doubt. Stumbling comically at times, Ruthie navigates life with and without the rules in which she鈥檚 been raised. Always physical, often sexual, Ruthie鈥檚 search for personal truth leads her from missionary outposts in Paraguay and Brazil to Mennonite towns in northern Indiana and central Kansas, a vandalized Native American site, women鈥檚 healthcare clinics, and lingerie shops on the secular, melancholy East Coast. Ultimately, these stories consider how faith and identity intertwine, the cost of abandoning one鈥檚 cultural heritage, and the complicated longing for return.
鈥淲hat a magnificent book. So scary, so sad, so strange, so brutal, so true, so expertly written, so brave, so forlornly Mennonite, so fiercely beautiful in so many ways. Ruthie is a creature who will live forever inside me. Is this a book of stories, a novel, neither of these, both of these? Who cares? It鈥檚 art. High, heart-thumping, unforgettable art. I was shaken by this book, but I was also made more wholly human.鈥濃擳im O鈥橞rien, author, The Things They Carried
鈥淚n these marvelous, deeply suspenseful stories, Sears writes with remarkable intimacy and lack of judgment about the deeply conflicted Ruthie and the religion she no longer believes in. By the end of What Mennonite Girls Are Good For, I felt I鈥檇 seen 鈥榯hat ancient truth鈥攈ow small we all stand.鈥欌濃擬argot Livesey, judge, John Simmons Short Fiction Award
鈥淲ith rare intelligence and sensitivity, Jennifer Sears has created remarkable stories set at the intersection of old-time religious ardor, erotic exploration, and the complex, often cruel weirdness of American life. What Mennonite Girls Are Good For is a singular achievement.鈥濃擬ary Gaitskill, author, Bad Behavior
鈥淏ecause these stories tell truths about the lives of girls and women, they reveal the brutality of patriarchy, invisible as the air we breathe. Similarly, set in a religious subculture that values self-sacrifice and peace, they expose the avarice and injustice that sustain North American life. Yet, Jennifer Sears knows it鈥檚 never that neat. With skill, guts, and intelligence, she鈥檚 created a novel in stories that is as profound as it is compelling. Even when it鈥檚 hard to read, it鈥檚 even harder to put down.鈥濃擩ulia Spicher Kasdorf, author, As Is
鈥淭he compassionate stories of Jennifer Sears鈥檚 uncompromising book deal with the legacy of trauma and religious expectations.鈥濃Foreword Reviews
鈥. . . while these stories address dark topics, their honesty, humor, and powerful sense of a will to live make them a rewarding and surprisingly joyful read. . . . Sears expertly shifts stylistic gears to keep her readers engaged, moving from rich passages . . . to bare-bones phrasing that echoes literary modernist precursors such as Hemingway.鈥濃North American Review
鈥淓njoy this emerging fiction writer who will entertain you, will show you something you didn鈥檛 know you would recognize, and will occasionally deliver a devilish hymn or a four-letter sermon. She鈥檒l repent quickly, apologize for the diversion, and retreat to her interior war. Read for an answer to the rhetorical question hidden behind a dangling preposition: What Mennonite Girls Are Good For. It鈥檚 a high-stakes adventure with planes, guns, pervs, and the gyrations of a goddess in disguise. At the end of the day, it鈥檚 a short story collection about religious syncretization, told with a voice of winsome aloofness that makes funnier-than-hell into its own corner plot in heaven.鈥濃Compulsive Reader
