This was fabulous. I had never read anything like it. It stood out because ancient world fiction is not my go-to genre. I had just finished Genesis as part of a Bible-reading plan a few months ago but this prompted me to go back and re-read large chunks of it to see where the author was getting her inspiration. I took a huge deep-dive and then did some research online. Anything that makes me that interested is worthy of 5 stars.
As a narrative, this is a solid hero's journey. It has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. It's just so well-crafted.
I could describe it as taking a couple of chapters from Genesis and blowing it up into a 300 page novel. The amount of research was probably astounding, because a whole world was created. It was just good.
The author took a lot of liberties but, truthfully, there's no reason why things couldn't have happened somewhat the way they did in this story.
And we often forget that the Israelites were a broken group of people who constantly made mistakes and God pursued them anyway. This book has more about the pagan gods than God himself, because God was Jacob's God and this story isn't about Jacob. Jacob was the strange outsider with an "invisible god" in this book.
Anyway. Super good. You should read it. I picked it up in as a Kindle deal because I'd seen it recommended by someone but I also read The Boston Girl years ago. I liked the story of The Boston Girl but the narration was awwwwwful. I don't recommend the audio.
This was rom-com but deeper. It was vey well-done in many ways. I don't have anything bad to say, actually. I felt for Laurie. I really liked Jamie. It was so much better than the typical rom-com/romance. I had another of this author's ebooks from the library but it expired before I read it. I didn't hate it either but, truthfully, I find it to be a lot more work to read a rom-com than any other type of book. I really have to psych myself up to push through these types.
But If I Never Met You was so good that I wanted to keep reading!
I will say this was about 100 pages too long...430 some pages? It was a great story but lots of words. Could've been told in a lot less?
I really enjoyed this. It was suspenseful and created a realistic fictional world; meaning a world with a historical backstory and that was kind of interesting. There's a bit of suspension of disbelief toward the end but it wasn't completely out there.
So a suspense thriller? Check. I recommend it.
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So it was NOT a heavy reading month, though I did read often and had memorable reading experiences; it wasn't a ton of books.
I'm still 4 books ahead of my goal for the year and currently trying to get through some library ebooks before they disappear from my Kindle.
