The Book of Longings

Better than I'd expected but not as good as I'd hoped.

It was kind of like Jesus fanfic, if you can envision a weird parallel universe in which Jesus was compassionate, thoughtful, and loving; in which he preached nonviolence and kindness to the less fortunate. (There are, I hear, scattered pockets of Christianity that hold these heretical views.)

But this is not a book about Jesus. Fanfic veers into the interesting side channels not covered in the canon, good fanfic keeps the focus there with only occasional obligatory nods to the characters and events hardcoded in the mythology. This is good fanfic. Ana is a rich person in her own right, as are the characters in her orbit, and Kidd paints a convincing picture of daily life in an age of inequality, cruelty, misogyny and corruption. How fortunate we are today, that such concepts are almost-forgotten historical footnotes!

I was surprised by Kidd's decision to make Ana unsympathetic or at least not entirely likable. Ana is entitled and impulsive. There are many ways to express this in first-person narration, but Kidd writes her as unapologetic and even a little oblivious—which makes her more believable and, paradoxically, a little more sympathetic. This added a complexity that almost, but not quite, bumps the book to five stars.

But, overall, it was unevenly great. The writing is overly simple, declarative, bordering on YA. A touch more heavyhanded than it needed to be. There were occasional mystical elements (hazy dreams and premonitions) that added nothing of substance. And, sigh: corn? A crescent moon rising at sunset? Were those not caught, or were they caught and deliberately approved in hopes readers wouldn't notice?