A review by citizen_noir
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

5.0

If I could give this book six stars, I would; it's a brilliant, beautiful, literary page-turner set in London in two time periods: the 1660s and the turn of this century. The narrative weaves back and forth between Ester Velazquez, a young woman who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, and a pair of modern day literary historians who are trying to piece together Ester's story from a trove of documents discovered during a home renovation.

Huge kudos to the author, Rachel Kadish (who my wife’s college roommate and remains a close friend) for pulling off this masterpiece. I think many readers might get scared off by a nearly 600 page book with Jewish history and philosophy at its core. Above I wrote the oxymoron "literary page-turner" intentionally because this book is just that: magnificently researched and exquisitely written by Kadish, with twists, turns, and surprises all the way to the final page.