The Red Tent in Reading with Style

Aug 11, 2024 Tien rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, read-on-kobo

This is the story of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter who was barely mentioned in the bible. However, this author has weaved her imagination over who she was and what her life was like as a woman in that time of ancient history. Of course, she had to keep the main (well-known) part of the story.

For the (approximately) first 100 pages of the book was about Jacob and his wives. This is not my favourite bible story. If you know me, you would know that I very much dislike love triangles. And I hate sibl ...more

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May 08, 2009 Bucket rated it really liked it

Shelves: identity, life-and-death, reviewed, culture, experimental, generational-epic, history, literary, religion, sex

Diamant was exclusively a writer of non-fiction when she took on this project and, seen in that light, the results are impressive. In fact, I found the first 1/2 or maybe even 2/3 of this book extremely well done and fascinating.

I enjoyed Dinah's internal monologue as the story occurred, though I did feel as though her perspective got a little muddled early in part two. At that point, Dinah in the story was a small child and the author occasionally seemed to forget that Dinah is telling this st ...more

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Sep 25, 2009 Paula rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A retelling of the Bible's Book of Genesis, this story has everything one would expect considering its origin. I felt like I was continually reading of geneologies, marriages, sex, and other family affairs. There were some portions that I enjoyed, but overall I felt the main character to be extremely self-centered. Considering that the intent is for this to be a story of a woman in the Bible, I felt a bit guilty about thinking negatively about her. ...more

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