160 reviews for:

Naamah

Sarah Blake

3.4 AVERAGE


Made it to three stars for the concept alone, but I'm baby, and it was so much for me. Naamah is interesting, I support her, but I spent most of the read just, huh???? Why??? What???????
adventurous emotional sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Oh, boy. Okay so this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2019. I don’t want to give it two stars but I think anything else would be dishonest.

I started out really liking this book. In terms of themes explored this is 100% up my alley: faith, doubt, family, sexuality, womanhood, destruction of the earth - yes!

And I liked it in the beginning. I liked hearing Naamah’s perspective on the flood, seeing the interactions with Noah and her family, hearing about what happened before the flood. And I liked the parts related to caring for the animals.

From pretty early on this was a weird book. Dream sequences, magical realism (if you can even call it that), and symbolism abound. But I can hang with a lot of weird stuff and even when I didn’t really get it I was still interested and liked it.

But then as the book went on the ratio of weird to story got way out of whack and she just totally lost me. The more it went on the more I found myself bored with these endless dream sequences because they went on for so long and were so random. And the amount of sex made it actually also become boring after a while.

I don’t understand what I’m supposed to glean from this, though I am not sad I read it. I think the more human aspects will probably stick with me and I appreciate what Blake was trying to do but...oof.

This was very interesting premise but I flipped between very engrossed and then not quite getting it.

Absurd and surreal. Erotic and comic. A fresh take on a tale almost as old as time.
dark emotional reflective
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character

so much sex and so little plot. So unrealistic too

3.5⭐️

This is not just a retelling of the story of Noah's ark, through the eyes of Naamah, his wife--but a story all her own, in lucid, *very* erotic, and almost dream-like prose. Sarah Blake really embodies the supernatural and terrifying fantasy of religious text through her writing, and yet still maintains such an earthly, agrestal feel. I really enjoyed it.

Purchased the hardcover (signed!) from Oxford Exchange bookstore in Tampa, FL.

edit 4/23/20: this would pair really well with [b:The Book of Longings|52698452|The Book of Longings|Sue Monk Kidd|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1570801291l/52698452._SX50_SY75_.jpg|73711176]. Could forever read more interpretations of biblical wives.