The Book of Longings: A Novel
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Ana wants to have a voice, but for a Jewish woman in the region of Sepphoris, this was not permitted. She finds her voice, and her heart’s truest mate, in Jesus ben Nazareth, later known as Jesus Christ. In The Book of Longing, Sue Monk Kidd has created a character so full of hope that to see Ana’s heartbreak is to feel your own.
Her indulgent father allowed for Ana’s education, but her mother resents her daughter’s literacy and wishes only for Ana to marry. When Ana is presented with a potential husband, a much older man whose political position and land ownership would be a boon to her family, Ana is crestfallen. She does everything she can to stop the marriage from happening, including writing down her own prayers in a sacred bowl given to her by her wise and unorthodox aunt Yaltha. Yaltha’s encouragement to know herself helps Ana to pursue the man her heart truly desires, Jesus, and to eventually become his wife.
The story of Ana is one of the longings women face to be more than mothers, more than wives, more than daughters. It is the story of Ana’s becoming; as she listens more to her heart and honors who she truly is, the more honest and devastating her life becomes.
The Book of Longings is brilliant as an imagination of the life of Jesus as a husband, but it is Ana’s story that makes this novel one of the most important books of the last ten years.
| Author | |
|---|---|
| Star Count | 5/5 |
| Format | Hard |
| Page Count | 432 pages |
| Publisher | Viking |
| Publish Date | 2020-04-21 |
| ISBN | 9780525429760 |
| Bookshop.org | Buy this Book |
| Issue | July 2020 |
| Category | Historical Fiction |
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