This review is filled with spoilers in a fairly detailed summary and in my reflections upon reading the novel.
Trading Secrets, a young adult novel by Melody Carlson, is the story about Micah Knight, a seventeen year old, and Zach Miller, who have been penpals since they were both eleven. Zach is Amish, while Micah has grown up in a modern, contemporary "English" (non-Amish) community. However, the penpals have shared many things with each other over many letters, and Micah is grateful for Zach's friendship especially with the latter helping the former in matters of faith and through some dark times, especially when Micah's mother died.
However, with spring break approaching, Zach writes and asks if he could visit and stay with Micah's family. This presents a huge problem for Micah, because Zach has been completely unaware throughout their correspondence that Micah is actually a girl. The book presents a plausible reason for this; our protagonists became penpals through a letter writing exchange between an Amish class and English class; however, Zach's teacher removed the photographs that had been attached to the letters from the English class. With Micah's unusual name, it was not surprising that Zach assumed that Micah was a boy. For all these years, Micah has not corrected him from that assumption, because of her fear that he would stop corresponding with her.
Micah wins a bit of a reprieve when Zach writes again, and informs her that his father requires his help to work on the family farm. Since he cannot visit her, would she like to visit him on the farm and help him with the spring planting instead?
At this point in the novel, I could hear myself telling Micah to just not do it, but our intrepid teenage girl does! She also visits Zach's family disguised as a boy, but that subterfuge does not last for very long. On the very first day of the visit, after Zach's father conducts a devotional on the importance of honesty from the book of Proverbs, Micah reveals herself to be a girl, stating that she did so in order to meet Zach, because it was something that she had wanted to do for such a long time. Zach does not handle this revelation very well; he is furious with Micah and tells her to leave.
After revealing her secret, Micah tries to hop on the bus to return home, but due to circumstances, is not able to leave immediately, and is persuaded by one of Zach's sisters to stay with the Miller family until she can find her way home.
The rest of Micah's stay is like the reverse of watching "Amish in the City," the reality television show that depicts Amish youth experiencing rumspringa in an urban setting. In Micah's case, she is now immersed in the Amish lifestyle. Unfortunately, she does not find a friend with Mrs. Miller, Zach's mother, and is made to feel inadequate by Rachel Yoder, an Amish girl who hopes to catch Zach's eye. Since Micah does not feel welcome in the Miller's house, she goes to help Zach and his father outside with the farm work. As the days pass, she is able to mend bridges with Zach and eventually wins over Zach's father's respect for her willingness to do hard work. Micah also learns that Zach's heart is not in working on the family farm; he loves working with and caring for animals instead. Zach is also struggling with his family's expectations for him; they expect him to help with the farm and also to marry Rachel, but he doesn't have the desire to do either of these things.
Micah is finally able to leave Zach's community when her father, a pilot, comes by in his plane to take her home. However, Zach also leaves with them, but realizes after a few days in the English world, that it would be difficult for an Amish person to survive there with limited skills and education. However, during this time, he meets Micah's Uncle Brad, a veterinarian. He returns home to his family for a season, but eventually returns to the English world, with the help of Micah's uncle, so that he can pursue his dream of becoming a vet.
Here's where I confess that I read this novel from the perspective of a mother who worries a bit about her children's safety especially if they would be staying overnight for a week at some stranger's place. I probably wouldn't have allowed Micah to go alone on such a trip without having some previous personal contact with the family that she would stay with or without knowing that this family was screened in some sort of official capacity by an authority that I could trust. But of course, in this story, Micah does not have a mother, and Micah's father seems to be a lot more relaxed about the whole matter with Micah visiting Zach than I would have personally felt comfortable with, even though Micah is 17 and already in her senior year of high school.
I was also cringing at how Micah ended up stranded in Zach's community for the week, as she first missed the bus because she arrived too late for a return trip on that first day, and also when she ran out of funds later on and could not purchase the bus fare home. She needed to wait until her father could fly out to pick her up, which took several days. This is a bit foreign to my own experience of growing up. If I were Micah, at that age, my parents would have made sure that there were already contingency plans in place either to wire money or to retrieve me as quickly as possible should the need arise. They would have definitely been more accessible for emergency contact than how Mr. Knight appeared in this story.
Having said that, I did think that it was still completely plausible for the plot to unfold as it did in Trading Secrets. I could see and imagine a gutsy 17 year old acting as Micah did to fulfil her desire in meeting a boy that she had a crush on. Micah's voice and thoughts sounded youthful, immature and impulsive enough to go ahead and carry out her plans even though the decision making and execution of those plans were a bit questionable. She is mature enough to realize that she is not in love with Zach, and I would say that this novel didn't really seem like much of a romance, even though Zach is pursued by Rachel. Instead, the focus on the plot turns to the choices that Zach needs to make; will he remain with his Amish community or will he attempt to pursue his own dreams for a different future than the one his family expects for him to have?
The novel ends with Micah and Zach remaining friends, but I wonder if Ms. Carlson will write a sequel if she hasn't already. I would love to find out what happens to Micah and Zach. Micah seems to have a romantic attraction to Zach that she may not be quite ready to acknowledge, but Zach seems rather clueless to the interest of the females surrounding him.
I enjoyed reading this novel, and would probably consider reading more of Melody Carlson's work.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of Trading Secrets from NetGalley in exchange for a review. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
