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daniellekat's review against another edition
13 chapters in and NOTHING is happening!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Rape
jmronbeck's review
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage and Blood
Minor: Rape
v171's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
What's the book version of Oscar bait? Pulitzer bait? What ever it is, this book is that. It was a very charming story, and emotional at times, but I couldn't help but feel that it was, as another reviewer put it, bible fan fiction. And I don't know that the author would necessarily disagree with that. The authors note was very honest and insightful into her concerns and thinking when deciding whether to write this story, and I found that refreshing to hear. I enjoyed how the characters were written and the over arching story was an interesting one.
But with that being said, I still just can't get over the thought that this was an easy capitalization on creating a feminist bible story, filled with headstrong, flawless women and modern motivations. I'm torn on the purpose of this story. It is clearly centered on Ana, the wife of Jesus, but it is so focused on her that Jesus is not present for the vast majority of the book. He only exists as someone to be, well, longed after off screen (off page?). One might argue that is the purpose of the story: focus on Ana as Jesus already has his own story. But to that, my response would be -- why make it about Jesus at all? What additional insights were we supposed to walk away with by making this a Jesus love story that he was hardly present in?
Would this have been a stronger story if it was not about the bible? No, probably not. As historical fiction, it fell flat because the characters felt far too modern, so maybe the only way to salvage it WAS to associate it with the bible. But I also didn't feel that this story challenged the reader to reconsider how they approach Christian texts. It was literally just bible fan fiction.
But with that being said, I still just can't get over the thought that this was an easy capitalization on creating a feminist bible story, filled with headstrong, flawless women and modern motivations. I'm torn on the purpose of this story. It is clearly centered on Ana, the wife of Jesus, but it is so focused on her that Jesus is not present for the vast majority of the book. He only exists as someone to be, well, longed after off screen (off page?). One might argue that is the purpose of the story: focus on Ana as Jesus already has his own story. But to that, my response would be -- why make it about Jesus at all? What additional insights were we supposed to walk away with by making this a Jesus love story that he was hardly present in?
Would this have been a stronger story if it was not about the bible? No, probably not. As historical fiction, it fell flat because the characters felt far too modern, so maybe the only way to salvage it WAS to associate it with the bible. But I also didn't feel that this story challenged the reader to reconsider how they approach Christian texts. It was literally just bible fan fiction.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Child death, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Miscarriage, and Violence
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Forced institutionalization
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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