Personal Rating: 1.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.87 Stars As the daughter of King Saul, Michal lives a life of privilege but one that is haunted by her father's unpredictable moods and by competition from her beautiful older sister. When Michal falls for young David, the harpist who plays to calm her father, she has no idea what romance, adventures, and heartache await her. (goodreads.com) Happy Monday, y'all! I hope you had a wonderful weekend filled to the very brim with awesomeness! Lately I’ve been reading through 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel for my devotions and it came to mind that my grandma had given us these books about the wives of King David and that they might be interesting to read. So I went down to the basement where there is a little library-school-room type of thing (I’m in charge of organizing the books and that isn’t going well at the moment) and dug out this book and it’s sequel. Then I started to read. Now I wish I hadn’t. For those of you who may not have been raised up on Bible stories and Sunday School songs, let me give you a little background. David, the guy who killed Goliath, was married many times (though, not as many times as his son Solomon, who was married to about 700 women) at the same time. No, Christians do not support bigamy or polygamy and I’m about as weirded out as you are. Having multiple wives is not good and yet here we have David, the man after God’s own heart, getting married again and again. It’s weird, man, and at the moment I can’t really figure out what was going on. I’ll probably look into it, but it’s weird. Out of David’s many wives, his first was Michal, daughter of King Saul (a guy who really wanted to kill David). This book described the relationship between David and Michal. It’s going to be kind of hard to review this book because it is based on actual events as described in the Bible, but I shall try my best. Fasten your seatbelts folks and here we go. The best comparison for this book is running the mile in the Presidential Fitness Test. Back when I actually participated in this testing there was nothing I dreaded more than running a mile. I’d take a hundred flu vaccination (something else I loathe) and eating a bucket full of carrots (least favorite vegetable) over running that mile. However, I always did it and even though my time wasn’t great, it wasn’t awful either. Anyway, reading this book reminded me of running the mile. The first chunk or lap is okay, you’ve got a good pace going and you can’t be sure of how things will turn out. Then comes the second lap or section and you are growing weary, wondering if you’re nearly there. On the third lap/book part you are panting, aching, and wishing this thing would just finish up and get over with because you really cannot stand it a moment longer. Finally you’re on the last lap and though you are dying and stumbling over yourself to get to the finish line, that last hundred meters isn’t so bad after all. Then you flop over on the ground and possibly throw up. The throwing up thing only happened with the running, not the reading, but I think my point still stands. As you can probably tell by that last paragraph and my rating (wonder of wonders, it’s actually lower than my rating for Me Before You!) I did not like or enjoy this book. I don’t even know why I kept reading it. Can I tell you something about Christian fiction (aka Inspirational fiction, as listed in libraries)? It’s mostly written by really great and neat Christian people who want to share the Gospel through stories or put some good old fashioned morals into storytelling. The problem is, these lovely Christian people are so excited about getting the Word of God out there that they forget a tiny detail… they can’t write. Now, this is a very stereotypical statement, and I have read some excellent Christian books before, but the fact is that these stories, moral filled though they are, aren’t as interesting as many other novels. Christian authors tend to be so focused on stuffing a story full with good morals that the plot and characters suffer. Knowing that David gets married to several women made it kind of hard for me to get into the romance of this book. At first it seemed like a regular old love story, but then they get separated and he gets married again and again and she gets married again and then they get thrown back together and the romance is trying desperately to hold on, but it just vanishes. I’d say that this book started out as a romance and ended up as a… well I don’t know exactly. This is definitely not a book for feminists. You probably guessed as much when I mentioned the polygamy. Aside from that fact, it was also very hard to read from Michal’s POV as she pretty much idolizes David and is helpless without him. We do get a turn around by the end of the book, and I almost liked the last chapter, but for the most part Michal is pathetic. Then there was David. As a child I’d hear stories about David and think he was the coolest guy in the Bible (apart from Jesus of course, because when you are in Sunday school no one is cooler than Jesus - actually, when you are anywhere, no one is cooler than Jesus). David slew Goliath, David was an awesome king, David did what God told him to, David was the best. Then I read this book and we have David start out as kind of cool, but then he turned into this guy who treats his wives as nothing more than objects to further his political campaign and who pretty much blames Michal for all the problems they have (granted, many of the problems were her fault). One thing that was good about this book was it’s historical accuracy. Of course, the author seemed so focused on the accuracy that she was afraid to add any more detail than necessary. Basically, if you want to know the plot of this book I’d suggested reading 1st and 2nd Samuel, it will save you a lot of time and provide all the same information without the romantic bits, which were hard to read anyway. An awkward topic portrayed awkwardly with awkward situations and awkward wording. The whole thing was tough to read and had me cringing through most of it. Safe to say, I won’t be reading the next two books in this series (Abigal and Bathsheba - golly, I don’t even want to think about how disastrous the one on Bathsheba would be). What are your thoughts? Should I have given this book a little more leniency? Have you ever read this book or do you plan to? Do you think I should do a Friday opinion post about Christian fiction? I’d love to hear what you think! Comment below! For more information about Michal and her role in David’s life I suggest Bible Gateway’s Article about her. Well, that’s it for me today. See y’all later! Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6140017-michal?ac=1&from_search=true
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