detailsandtales's review against another edition
If I could, I'd give this a 2.5. Because of this, I'm going to refrain from rating it, because there's a big difference between a 2 and a 3. I'm happy that someone is writing fantasy based on Jewish mythology, and I support the existence of this book and more like it, but, in the end, I didn't enjoy most of this one. I think the biggest issue that I had with this book is in the protagonist. Daniel is supposed to be one of the Lamed Vav, one of the 36 righteous people that hold up the world. In my mind, the Lamed Vav are people without the character flaws that most people have, and it's really hard to write a protagonist who doesn't have flaws. To me, Daniel feels too human, and he also ends up seeming weak for much of the book, carried along by the plot instead of directing it. The story does improve at the end, and the climax is, for the most part, full of energy and beautifully written, but if I wasn't personally acquainted with the author, I most likely would have abandoned this book long before the climax.
farahmendlesohn's review against another edition
3.0
The material is good but in the end the actual writing couldn’t support the story. Places that should have been tense weren’t, people we needed to care about were ciphers, and it ended with a version of ‘but it was all a dream’.
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