Recommend Me is a weekly event hosted by Kate at The Neverending Shelf - in which participants will pick one of their all time favorite reads to share. This could be a book that your read yesterday or years ago.
To play along, grab a favorite read and tell us about it. You can include your thoughts about the novel, its
summary, your favorite memory related to the novel...the possibilities are limitless
This Week my pick is: I Am Not Esther by Fleur Beale
Book Synopsis: Imagine that your mother tells you that she is going away. She is leaving you with relatives whom you have never heard of-and they are members of a strict religious cult. Your name is changed to a biblical one, Esther, and you are forced to follow the severe set of social standards set by the cult. You don't know where you mother is, and you are beginning to lose your own identity.
My Thoughts
I read this last summer and it reminded me of a powerful woman here me roar book- Beal's engrossing novel peers into the restricted world of the Children of the Faith, a rigidly traditional and completely fiction look into a Christian denomination.
Kirby has never known any family aside from her impractical mother, Ellen. When Ellen abruptly makes plans to fulfill her lifelong dream of working with refugees in Africa, she sends Kirby to live with her estranged brother,Caleb and his wife. Once arriving, Kirby is renamed Esther for religious reasons and of course Kirby flips at the name change, restrictions are forced on her style of dress and hair. The goals for women are to grow up and marry early while haivng lots of children.....
I’m recommending this because... number one- it was written very well and number two it’s a great fiction story. It obviously stemmed it's roots based upon the Pentecostal religion, which is a denomination of Christianity. There is the whole holy movement out there, which involves women looking like Goodwill tomboy models, but for the most part the book isn’t a true representation of the Pentecostal religion. This heavily leaned towards more of the cultish type religions, where scare tactics, burning in hell and women treated as slaves are the norm.
Wow, this does sound fantastic. I'm adding it to my TBR right now.
ReplyDeleteInteresting...I don't think I have read anything like this
ReplyDeleteoh I need to check this book out too.
ReplyDeleteSounds very intersting!
ReplyDeleteHere is my Recommend mepost!