A review by elusiverica
Hadassah: One Night with the King by Tommy Tenney, Mark Andrew Olsen

3.0

The story of Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia who saved her people from being slaughtered. There were parts of this book I liked and parts I didn’t. It’s a great story, and one I already knew and cared for. It was atmospheric, it was gripping, and despite most of the book being about living in the concubine’s quarters of the palace waiting for things to happen, it never felt boring. But I didn’t like the historically inaccurate swastikas as the emblem of those who wanted to kill the Jewish people. Didn’t like the way it skipped from first person to third person even though the whole thing was supposed to be a letter written by Esther. I realise she was not present for the events described in third person and that’s why they did it, but maybe you shouldn’t include scenes that the person telling the story has no way of knowing anything about. If you don’t want to leave them out, don’t structure the book as a personal letter. And finally, I didn’t like the message Esther kept hammering of “It’s all about him. Think about his pleasure, his desires, not your own. In fact, make your desire to fulfill his desires and your greatest pleasure to bring him pleasure.” I mean, if your goal is to seduce a king, as Esther’s was, that’s a legit strategy. But the book seemed to be presenting it as general relationship advice even for women in the modern world (the distant descendent of Esther’s who was reading the letter certainly took it that way), and I am not comfortable with that.