I loved this book. So much so that I lent it to my mother and then forgot I owned it and bought a second copy. I’ll admit it was difficult for me to get past the differences between the story and the original Biblical text, but once I stepped back and realized that it’s a fictional book, it was easy to enjoy. The rich descriptions of women’s lives and the culture that surrounded them were beautiful. It really put flesh on the story that I learned a long time ago in Sunday School. If you’re a conservative Christian with a strict view of the Bible, you may not enjoy this book (my mom didn’t), but if you’re willing to be open-minded, your life will be greatly enriched by the experience.

a fascinating story, even for a non-christian like me.

5/5
http://www.expage.com/jessysbooks

I was a wee bit sad about this book by the end, mostly because the beginning was so rich and tightly woven. All of the details were consistent, all of the characters changed and grew believably, and the setting became safe and homey for me, the reader, as much as it was for Dinah and her mothers.

Then, it seemed, Diamant faltered a bit. She took me all the way through to Dinah’s near-wedding, and I was there with her, soaking in the story and the drama and the detail. After that, I was understandably confused by the vagueries – Dinah struggles beneath a deep depression, trauma nightmares, etc. It made sense that the narrative was less descriptive, disjointed, dischordant.

But after that, it was difficult for me to commit to Dinah’s story. The details remained vague, the characters seemed thrown in for the sake of having characters, and the book walked along to its conclusion without me. I felt like I was given plot points in a sort of outline that hadn’t been filled in completely. It made me wonder if Diamant’s true inspiration for the book was driven by the meticulous parallel with the biblical text, and once she departed from that text she was a little frightened by the pure freedom of borderless fiction.

To conclude, I’m glad I read this book, I DO think it’s worth consuming, but I drew the most intense enjoyment from the richness of the biblical text woven with a previously unvoiced experience.

This book was lent to me by my boyfriend’s mother – a great lady with good taste in books. It wouldn’t normally be something that I would ever pick up (I have very little interest in biblical things, and even less interest in motherhood), but I quite enjoyed it.

12.2003
10/10 Stars

I sorta lost interest about 30 pages near the end. I did stick it out past the brutal murders and treachery of Dinah’s family and then felt like it just wasn’t worth it—the story wasn’t going anywhere. I bought it in a yard sale though, so I feel like I wasn’t shortchanged :D

Re-reading on the occasion of the birth of my first daughter.

done

This book is about the relationship between Dinah, her mother, and her aunts. It’s both fascinating and touching and I feel completely in love with this book.