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rjmcewan's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this. Perhaps not for everyone with its highly controversial religious views....but I found it fascinating.
laurenguydan's review against another edition
4.0
I didn’t expect to like this novel. I am not Jewish and have only a passing knowledge of Judaism. I am as secular as they come. But I did like it.
ksjones's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Very good. Deeply disturbing. Insightful. Validating. I’ll be thinking about this one for years. Hopefully I don’t get nightmares from it.
krisis86's review against another edition
1.0
Seeing all the five star reviews makes me nervous. Did I miss something huge in this book? I will probably never know, because I am never, ever going to suffer through all 245 pages ever again.
This story is BAD. It starts off slow and it ends slow. There is no real action until about page 200. I kind of felt this book was totally misleading. The synopsis on the back says it's about a Rabbi who is visited by the ghosts of a village decimated in the Holocaust. This is not true. It's about a Rabbi who
There. I just saved you 245 pages of agonizing reading. Seriously. Don't waste your time on this one. It's awful. Mr. Lester, I am sure you are a nice person and you know your stuff, but I hope I never have to read anything written by you again. Yuck.
This story is BAD. It starts off slow and it ends slow. There is no real action until about page 200. I kind of felt this book was totally misleading. The synopsis on the back says it's about a Rabbi who is visited by the ghosts of a village decimated in the Holocaust. This is not true. It's about a Rabbi who
Spoiler
is disillusioned with her life because she was hit by a car (?) and for some reason never told her husband why she had a limp, and divorced for some reason, and she is going through the motions of her religion and her life when ka-bam, a ghost says "hey. God wants to visit you." And that's about the end of the whole ghostly village. And then God lets her read His autobiography, which actually is extremely weird and unpleasant, and P.S. he appears to her looking like Hitler's twin, and then by the way, some random college student is murdered and at the end we find out in a completely stupid and trite way that the killer was a Big Deal to Rebecca. But that part is so obvious and just plain stupid that I spent the whole 6 pages in between "duh, it was this guy," to the actual reveal banging my head against the wall. And the ending. Oh, the terrible ending.There. I just saved you 245 pages of agonizing reading. Seriously. Don't waste your time on this one. It's awful. Mr. Lester, I am sure you are a nice person and you know your stuff, but I hope I never have to read anything written by you again. Yuck.
psalmcat's review
4.0
The title just grabbed me, and it's kind of a mystery as well, plus the author is pretty well-known in children's literature. He's not who you would picture to write the story of a 38-year-old former rabbi counseling college kids at a private New England school. From what I can tell, he got the Jewish sensibility down pretty well.
Rebecca is very strong in her sense of Jewish tradition, almost to the point of being trapped by it. Her faith? Well, that's a harder question to answer. Her parents are survivors of Auschwitz, and so was nearly everyone in her neighborhood growing up. The shadow of the camps covers her like a shawl.
So when she receives a Torah rescued from the Nazis after WWII which belonged to a village in Poland that was exterminated, she is uniquely prepared to handle the early morning Kaddish that is chanted in her dining room nightly. She's even amenable to the voice of a woman from Czechowa telling her the story behind the scroll. Amenable, that is, until a mysterious box appears next to the scroll which her new 'friend' tells her is God's autobiography.
It's not what she expects. It's not what anyone has expected: God has tried giving it to people as far apart as Martin Luther and Mohammed. No one wants to read it; none of the others have even finished it. Most burned or drowned it.
Rebecca reads it, and then God appears in her loft.
Meanwhile, one of the students she has counseled is murdered...
There's a lot in here. Most of it cohered all right, but there were some bumps. I'd recommend it, though, to anyone who ponders how Good and Evil interact.
Rebecca is very strong in her sense of Jewish tradition, almost to the point of being trapped by it. Her faith? Well, that's a harder question to answer. Her parents are survivors of Auschwitz, and so was nearly everyone in her neighborhood growing up. The shadow of the camps covers her like a shawl.
So when she receives a Torah rescued from the Nazis after WWII which belonged to a village in Poland that was exterminated, she is uniquely prepared to handle the early morning Kaddish that is chanted in her dining room nightly. She's even amenable to the voice of a woman from Czechowa telling her the story behind the scroll. Amenable, that is, until a mysterious box appears next to the scroll which her new 'friend' tells her is God's autobiography.
It's not what she expects. It's not what anyone has expected: God has tried giving it to people as far apart as Martin Luther and Mohammed. No one wants to read it; none of the others have even finished it. Most burned or drowned it.
Rebecca reads it, and then God appears in her loft.
Meanwhile, one of the students she has counseled is murdered...
There's a lot in here. Most of it cohered all right, but there were some bumps. I'd recommend it, though, to anyone who ponders how Good and Evil interact.
bennificial's review against another edition
2.0
Two stars because I like Rebecca, but there is no other redeemable quality in the text. The authors sexism and ableism is clear and 100 pages in, there is no clear direction for the plot. I started reading because of an interest in the murder mystery aspect but I have yet to get that far. The story would be better if it focused on Rebecca, her students, and her religion.
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