book nook: the red tent

the red tent
anita diamant

i finished reading this book a while ago, but i never got around to writing anything about until now. oops. anyway, i read a lot of good reviews about this book so i set on a mission to find it at the library and man, it was hard to find. thankfully i was finally able to track down a copy at my little local village library, so i happily picked it up and eventually got around to reading it.

the story takes place in biblical times and centres around dinah, jacob's only daughter. diamant basically took what was mentioned in the bible about her and expanded on it, resulting in a fictitious story based on historical texts. the book follows dinah's life and gives the reader an inside look on what it was like for her to be a girl growing up in that time period and what it was like being the only daughter amongst many sons.

some parts were pretty interesting as they gave insight into what life was like back then (especially for females), but other parts were just plain weird. it was generally pretty well-written, but at the end of the day the book just didn't click with me. maybe i was expecting too much because of all the good reviews i read beforehand. or maybe it was because, like i said before, some parts were just plain weird.

it's not a bad book, but i didn't think it was that great either (although many people would probably disagree with me on that.) i'm glad i read it, but i probably won't be reading it again. and i'm glad i didn't end up buying it. this is just my own opinion though so if you're curious about this book i'd encourage you to read it for yourself, but guys beware: it's definitely more of a ladies book. :P