Broken Roads: Returning to My Amish Father by Ira Wagler Book Review

In Broken Roads, Ira Wagler has written a follow up book to his first book. This one opens up about the Amish lifestyle and goes into details about his desire to leave. He was born the ninth child of eleven children. His parents were David and Ida Wagler and they was raised in Daviess County, Indiana. His parents moved their family out to smaller communities. His father helped start Pathway Publisher with a few of his friends. They wrote on historical subjects and articles related to the Amish community. Ira shared how he felt they were all less than truthful and try to appear like they were perfect people. In the book, he shared why he decided to leave at 26 and travel down a broken road. He ran away from marrying an Amish girl, Sarah and his father warned him that he would pay for it. He left and decided to pursue and get his GED and how he made his way into Vincennes University. He goes into detail about his life in college and even how he wound up at Bob Jones University. He eventually entered law school and revealed how the Amish community doesn’t really use any lawyers because they don’t sue. 

In the book, he opened up about how he met his wife, Ellen and how they struggled in their marriage. He shared how broken their marriage was and everything that played into the fallen out and the decision to get divorced. He shared how his childhood friend ended up dating Ellen later for about a year and how that affected him. He shared how he later was able to forgive his friend and how he even joined a Bible study with him. He also opened up about how he wrote his first book and how it sold a great number of books. He also shared how he returned to his father and what their relationship was like after leaving the Amish. He also got personal in sharing out his mother pasted and then years later his father pasted. He opened up about what their funerals was like. 

I would recommend this amazing book to anyone who is wondering about the Amish lifestyle and they are curious on how someone was able to leave it. I immensely liked how honest Ira was in revealing the painful past and going through a divorce. I haven’t read his first book but I was able to still follow along with his life story. I also liked how he explained how his father relationship changed over the years and how God was able to turn it around. The book had a few God teachable moments throughout the book but it was more of an autobiography of his life. It didn’t include tons of scriptures. But I still believe readers will be able to connect and learn from the book. 

"I received this book free from the publisher, Faithwords for my honest review.” 

If you would like to purchase a copy of Broken Roads, check it out on Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Roads-Returning-Amish-Father/dp/1546012060