Alice Degan's From All False Doctrine
A fantasy author I like was recommending this book, and since it’s described as “a metaphysical mystery wrapped up in a 1920s comedy of manners,” it seemed up my alley. And the first chunk was so good, I was so invested in the two main characters—an atheist woman graduate student, studying classics, and her love interest, who turns out to be a priest, but the kind that can get married—and their budding romance, and personal struggles, and their two best friends, who get engaged, but then one goes missing! I kept wondering when something magical would happen, since this was billed as a fantasy novel, but I was into it so kept on going, even as I started to suspect this book was … Christian? And eventually /supernatural/ things do get mentioned, but this is very much a story about Christians fighting the devil. Which is fine, but not what I had expected, and honestly I felt a bit misled. I also thought the ending was a bit saccharine, like once it leaned into being super Christian, it had to give some moral lessons. Not super appealing to this Jewish reader, such a bummer. B.
No comments:
Post a Comment