Book Review: "Mine Is The Night"

I received another free book last week, "Mine Is the Night" by Liz Curtis Higgs, and was excited to get an adult fiction book to read. One of my favorite ways to relieve stress is to read a good book and take a hot bubble bath. 433 pages later, here's my review of the book...

"My first reaction to "Mine Is The Night" as I took it out of the package was, 'wow, elegant woman on the cover, but this book is THICK!' And as historical fiction goes, that can be good or bad. Great if it keeps the reader intrigued and transports them to another time in our world. But in the case of this book, not so great if it takes a really long time to get the story going... I was on page 150 and the only thing keeping me going was the fact that I had to finish the book to write my review so I could get another book. If this had been a library book, I would have just returned it.

I love classical literature, but this followed too closely with descriptions of rooms, dresses, expressions, thoughts, etc... Detailed and vague all at once. It took the first 200 pages to lay the groundwork of places and people for the second half of the book. It wasn't until the last 2/3 of the book that you realized (all of the sudden) very clearly that this is a parallel story of Ruth/Boaz from the Bible. So subtle, and then suddenly so obvious like it was a rush to cram it in. At that point, the story that was actually getting good, all the sudden turned predictable. I love the story of Ruth in the Bible and her courage to go to a strange land as a widow, following God and her mother-in-law. It's more how the book just suddenly makes all these associations back-to-back that made it feel cheesy.

As a mom, a 433 page book better keep things going, or I don't have the time for it. This might suit the taste of some people who like to linger through a book, but since I can only grab a chapter here and there, this book stayed tedious until almost the end.

Feels so weird to write a more negative review, but I definitely won't be recommending this book to anyone anytime soon.