Queen Esther: A Novel

This may be the worst book I ever read and I read a lot of books. Our book club was unanimous that this book was poorly written, made no sense at some parts and was misleading that it was a book about Esther. I obviously don’t reccomend this book.

The story starts with typical JI meandering rants and tales, then it settles into really playful storytelling which reminded me why I enjoy his writing so much. Not his best but definitely entertaining. Hard Rain is a great character.

In wondering why the titular character spends much of the book existing as a reference rather than an active cast member, it’s a struggle not to overthink it. She is certainly a metaphor for her namesake as we see below, but you be the judge if the "hidden" theme goes too far. "The biblical Esther, the queen who hides her Jewish identity. “God does not appear in the Esther of the Christian Old Testament or in the Esther of the Hebrew Bible—even God is hidden, Jimmy,” Honor said. In the holiday of Purim, when the Jews read the Scroll of Esther, they wear masks to hide their faces—more hiding, Jimmy.”" I’m not complaining that the Queen’s prodigy stole the stage. It’s more a matter of expectations set by titles. “Jimmy Winslow, Ich weiß” would have done several things—prepare us for both his stage crashing and his reticence to express himself with more than, “I know.” Blame that on his grandfather Thomas as you will also do when you learn that it is he who triggered the avalanche of Dickens in this book. As proof, I offer the following— "What Thomas Winslow didn’t expect was that reading Great Expectations aloud made Jimmy Winslow want to be a writer—but only if he could be a novelist like Charles Dickens. Thomas never meant to burden the boy with such an outdated desire; to be a novelist like Charles Dickens struck Thomas as a dinosaur of an ambition. Wasn’t James Winslow doomed to be out of date before he began—condemned to obscurity before he started? " The complaint is that we suffer through pages and pages of soppy Dickens lessons when we actually want to learn about the mysterious Queen Esther. As they say grandfather Thomas, “no good deed goes unpunished.” If there is a saving grace in this book, it is Jimmy’s time in Vienna. The characters in this period are priceless. There's Siegfried with his mutilated plastic soldiers, the suplay master Little Mirror, and roommates that are full of personality. If only the book had begun in Vienna! Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing this eARC.