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saracatalyst's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I really loved this book! Kidd does a great job of creating a very human character for Jesus and writing a story that feels fresh and unburdened so close to perhaps the most well known story of all time.
Having grown up attending a Methodist church, I was amazed and delighted with the way Kidd’s portrayal of events with which I’m perhaps *over* familiar felt new due to a realness the retellings have never possessed.
Aside from the obvious and overarching tie to Christianity, the story bears merit on its own. Kidd’s extensive research shines through as a solid foundation for the story she creates. The themes of women’s roles in society, religion, culture, and the home carry enough weight that Jesus’s relevance in the story doesn’t completely overwhelm every other aspect. I loved Ana, her many companions, and the unique relationships she had with each of them.
This book is great so criticism feels weird. But at the same time… some of the characters felt a little too convenient to feel totally real. Ana felt like a pretty clear distillation of the author’s view of herself. The complexity for Jesus’s character at times felt like answering what’s your greatest weakness with “I care too much and work too hard.” I felt myself wanting more at times, like the plot was being rushed along through dialogue but I understand that the point was to keep things from Ana’s perspective and she couldn’t be present for every relevant event in the story. The last thing I felt like I wanted was a more three dimensional representation of the society. It felt like as soon as we zoomed out any amount from intimate family interactions, society was just a villain and a bad place to be. Perhaps this is just the way things were, but seems more likely there might have been moments of happiness and beauty that the people would be able to find.
If you’ve read this book and have thoughts, please talk to me!
Having grown up attending a Methodist church, I was amazed and delighted with the way Kidd’s portrayal of events with which I’m perhaps *over* familiar felt new due to a realness the retellings have never possessed.
Aside from the obvious and overarching tie to Christianity, the story bears merit on its own. Kidd’s extensive research shines through as a solid foundation for the story she creates. The themes of women’s roles in society, religion, culture, and the home carry enough weight that Jesus’s relevance in the story doesn’t completely overwhelm every other aspect. I loved Ana, her many companions, and the unique relationships she had with each of them.
This book is great so criticism feels weird. But at the same time… some of the characters felt a little too convenient to feel totally real. Ana felt like a pretty clear distillation of the author’s view of herself. The complexity for Jesus’s character at times felt like answering what’s your greatest weakness with “I care too much and work too hard.” I felt myself wanting more at times, like the plot was being rushed along through dialogue but I understand that the point was to keep things from Ana’s perspective and she couldn’t be present for every relevant event in the story. The last thing I felt like I wanted was a more three dimensional representation of the society. It felt like as soon as we zoomed out any amount from intimate family interactions, society was just a villain and a bad place to be. Perhaps this is just the way things were, but seems more likely there might have been moments of happiness and beauty that the people would be able to find.
If you’ve read this book and have thoughts, please talk to me!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Torture, Sexual harassment, Police brutality, Grief, Colonisation, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Domestic abuse, and Confinement
Moderate: Rape, Antisemitism, Suicidal thoughts, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Classism, Death of parent, Misogyny, and Slavery
maddiebusick's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Grief, Miscarriage, Torture, Murder, Sexism, Rape, Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, and Violence
Moderate: Cursing, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Medical content, Misogyny, and Suicide
Minor: Alcohol, Deportation, Police brutality, and Slavery
morganwiard's review
SO BORING. I tried SO HARD to get into it cause it had so many good reviews. Plus it was kind of retelling the Jesus story in a way that christians would think is blasphemous, but it was absolutely terrible. So boring and overall uninteresting. I need a quicker plot.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Sexism, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, and Sexual content
Minor: Slavery
leahsbooks's review against another edition
DNF @ 28%.
CONTENT WARNING: forced marriage, negative representation of all Jewish characters
While I respect what the author was trying to do here, I found it especially offensive in its portrayal of Jewish characters.
The author displayed a stunning lack of sensitivity in how the Jewish characters were portrayed - they were rich, manipulative, and greedy, without fail. Ana's father traded his daughter to achieve financial goals, and his brother Haran was rich and cruel, who scammed his own brother to increase his own financial gain. They had no redeeming characteristics at any point. Ana's mother was manipulative, constantly scheming to get her way.
"From my mother I'd learned the skills of deception. I'd secreted my womanhood, hidden my incantation bowl, buried my writings, and feigned reasons to meet Jesus in the cave, but it was Father who'd shown me how to strike a despicable bargain."
In addition, while there's clearly a lot of research that went into the creation of this book, apparently not enough of it went into researching Jewish customs or history. Because there were a stunning number of issues that I noticed in the section that I read. The first thing I caught was that more than half of the Jewish months were spelled incorrectly. Shebat is actually Shevat, Tebet is actually Tevet, and Ab is actually Av. But even more disturbing was the completely incorrect and misleading views on rape that the author chose to attribute to Jewish beliefs. In Judaism, even in biblical times, rape has always been viewed as a crime and not something that brings punishment upon the woman. In this book, however, the author has decided to completely change that when a soldier rapes a side character:
"'She was distraught, and I'm sorry for her, but she shamed herself. She brought dishonor to her father and to her betrothed, who will surely divorce her now.'"
Instead of seeking justice, everyone around them blames the victim herself and then ... her father CUTS OUT HER TONGUE as punishment for saying that she was raped. What the actual F?
It was very clear that the story was written by a Christian with limited understanding of Jewish religion, culture, and beliefs. When she mentioned: "This I'd heard of-not the hymn, but Inanna the Goddess, queen of heaven, and Yahweh's adversary." Literally no Jewish person ever says "Yahweh," even in those times. We also wouldn't believe that God has any adversaries, because the central belief of Judaism is the presence of ONE GOD. You can hear stories about goddesses, but they aren't part of the belief system and therefore wouldn't be an "adversary" or competition of any sort. Yet another inaccuracy that I found was the use of mamzers:
"Mamzers were of all varieties-bastards, harlots, adulterers, fornicators, thieves, necromancers, beggars, lepers, divorced women, cast-out widows, the unclean, the destitute, those possessed of devils, Gentiles-all of them shunned accordingly."
The actual definition of a mamzer is "a child born of a forbidden sexual union," such as a child born of incest or adultery. That's it. Nothing to do with bastards, harlots, or any of the other things listed above. I'm not even sure why Gentiles were included in that list anyway, since Jewish people and Gentiles live side by side, often working together in the same house? It just seems like it was adding fuel to the fire.
I understand that the ideal audience of the story is probably not Jewish readers, but seriously, could SMK not have tried to portray at least ONE Jewish character as a decent human being? Ultimately, I couldn't get past all these constant digs at Jewish people, the historical inaccuracies, and how slow-moving and utterly boring the story was.
CONTENT WARNING: forced marriage, negative representation of all Jewish characters
While I respect what the author was trying to do here, I found it especially offensive in its portrayal of Jewish characters.
The author displayed a stunning lack of sensitivity in how the Jewish characters were portrayed - they were rich, manipulative, and greedy, without fail. Ana's father traded his daughter to achieve financial goals, and his brother Haran was rich and cruel, who scammed his own brother to increase his own financial gain. They had no redeeming characteristics at any point. Ana's mother was manipulative, constantly scheming to get her way.
"From my mother I'd learned the skills of deception. I'd secreted my womanhood, hidden my incantation bowl, buried my writings, and feigned reasons to meet Jesus in the cave, but it was Father who'd shown me how to strike a despicable bargain."
In addition, while there's clearly a lot of research that went into the creation of this book, apparently not enough of it went into researching Jewish customs or history. Because there were a stunning number of issues that I noticed in the section that I read. The first thing I caught was that more than half of the Jewish months were spelled incorrectly. Shebat is actually Shevat, Tebet is actually Tevet, and Ab is actually Av. But even more disturbing was the completely incorrect and misleading views on rape that the author chose to attribute to Jewish beliefs. In Judaism, even in biblical times, rape has always been viewed as a crime and not something that brings punishment upon the woman. In this book, however, the author has decided to completely change that when a soldier rapes a side character:
"'She was distraught, and I'm sorry for her, but she shamed herself. She brought dishonor to her father and to her betrothed, who will surely divorce her now.'"
Instead of seeking justice, everyone around them blames the victim herself and then ... her father CUTS OUT HER TONGUE as punishment for saying that she was raped. What the actual F?
It was very clear that the story was written by a Christian with limited understanding of Jewish religion, culture, and beliefs. When she mentioned: "This I'd heard of-not the hymn, but Inanna the Goddess, queen of heaven, and Yahweh's adversary." Literally no Jewish person ever says "Yahweh," even in those times. We also wouldn't believe that God has any adversaries, because the central belief of Judaism is the presence of ONE GOD. You can hear stories about goddesses, but they aren't part of the belief system and therefore wouldn't be an "adversary" or competition of any sort. Yet another inaccuracy that I found was the use of mamzers:
"Mamzers were of all varieties-bastards, harlots, adulterers, fornicators, thieves, necromancers, beggars, lepers, divorced women, cast-out widows, the unclean, the destitute, those possessed of devils, Gentiles-all of them shunned accordingly."
The actual definition of a mamzer is "a child born of a forbidden sexual union," such as a child born of incest or adultery. That's it. Nothing to do with bastards, harlots, or any of the other things listed above. I'm not even sure why Gentiles were included in that list anyway, since Jewish people and Gentiles live side by side, often working together in the same house? It just seems like it was adding fuel to the fire.
I understand that the ideal audience of the story is probably not Jewish readers, but seriously, could SMK not have tried to portray at least ONE Jewish character as a decent human being? Ultimately, I couldn't get past all these constant digs at Jewish people, the historical inaccuracies, and how slow-moving and utterly boring the story was.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Gore, and Misogyny
Minor: Rape
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