Lentils... I've never eaten them, are they so good? Emily Barton seems to think so, and so, behind all the alternate timelines, historical inevitability, struggling Jewish cultures, and semi-sentient mechanical horses - she has written, truly, a book about her love for this mystical legume. Do I need to say more about The Book of Esther? Probably, and I will. But, clearly, I needed to mention the lentils. I'll get it right out of the way, The Book of Esther is about an alternate timeline that inevitably leads the Jewish peoples to have their very own country, and invite wildly strange technologies. I am not Jewish, I do not know much about anything to do with Jewish culture. BUT, that strangely kept me invested in this story. The fact that I had no idea about Jewish people, had me learning new things left and right about them. I was just as invested as I would be when it came to fictional societies, countries, and cultures. Right off the bat, I was hooked and it wasn't hard to dive right in. You won't find anything else like it out there. Emily Barton has created a thoroughly complex world, and surprisingly doesn't simply create a story where the Jewish peoples take revenge on Germany because of... history. Nope, she took the high road here. The Jewish people have a minimalist society, tribes, ranking systems rife with abuse (Esther herself seems very intent on using marriage to achieve a particular title), discrimination when it comes to refugees, non-Jewish peoples, light sexism, and the most bonkers technology you could ever imagine. Most of the time, these people have no idea how to combat the Germanii threat, their intelligence often fails due to human error, and guns are just a weapon they don't use. When it comes to tech, they use semi-sentient mechanical horses that feed off troffs of oil (what?), have their own will, and sound extremely cool, but I can't feel a bit iffy on their actual usefulness. Could you not trip a mechanical horse? What is the weight limit? Why are they sentient? Atop that you have other questionable inventions such as wooden air vehicles... I have no words. I can't even decide if these are cool, or just ridiculous. Characters, to me, can be just a little bit odd. Everyone has been part of this culture for so long that, they are completely familiar with the way it runs, and the history. Oftentimes they'll be saying Jewish phrases, and talking about things that you don't know about until later in the story. It took me a long time to get a hold on what people were thinking or talking about when they weren't dealing with the situations at hand. Everything about their country, especially Esther, is so important that everyone needs to talk about it constantly. It can be, at times, a lot to swallow and borders on exposition. Esther, the titular character can be loud, and isn't often right when it comes to everything. She likes to say what seems right, demand it from everyone, without knowing if it is. And, since her name is derived from Jewish religion, she seems intent on being someone important to her people. Therein, Esther is naive, takes on far too much, has a self-determined sense of responsibility, but ultimately she is still trying to do the right thing - not always in the right way. Her family isn't much different, and often their views on how to handle situations collide and make things very interesting. I can't say that The Book of Esther is for everyone, it requires a good deal of dedication to move past it's trickier moments. Sometimes the presumption that a reader is Jewish gets in the way, definite due to me not being Jewish, but Emily Barton always seems to find a way to explain what words mean, and what exactly is happening in her world. Moments felt loss always eventually come together. And, there really is nothing as vast in the alternate-history subgenre as this book. You will not find another book like The Book of Esther, I mean that in the best possible way. -L. BROOKS Find out more, if you're interested... The Book of Esther - Penguin/RandomHouse More about Emily Barton
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