BOOK REVIEW: "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant

This book was suggested by one of the members of my book club and the rest of us were a bit worried that it might be "overly religious" (only worried about this as the last few choices had been fairly heavy themselves), especially having seen its cover and the fact that Dinah, is mentioned in the Bible. In actuality, it wasn't all that religious. It tells Dinah's story, starting first with the story of her "mother's" and generally portraying women's lives during that time. The story itself was mostly fine but I just found that it dragged on a bit and with the constant portrayal of women's daily lives, I just got bored. Until, finally a major event happens (not going to mention it) but sprung out of nowhere and is over and done with so quickly that I actually did a double take and had to re-read the passage, thinking it might have been a dream sequence. It wasn't. It happened. And yet, not much time was devoted to it. In my opinion. Normality was resumed as the story dropped back to its particularly slow pace, which I continued to struggle to get to the end of. But I did, in the end, get to the end. I was somewhat relieved that the reading was over. Sorry. Truthfully, I don't think historical fiction is really for me, which probably doesn't help this review.