Name: Sarai
ISBN: 9780800734299

Jill Eileen Smith

When Abram requests Sarai's hand in marriage, he promises never to take another wife and in return Sarai promises to give Abram a son, but as the years go by and Sarai's womb remains empty, she becomes desperate to fulfill her end of the bargain.

A Novel

Sarai

Jeni Enjaian

This book had so much promise but the end left me disappointed. First, the good. I found the beginning of the book fascinating. Smith dealt with the fact that Abraham and his family followed God amidst plenteous other gods before being given the law and being made the chosen people. It is so easy to read the Bible and just assume that they knew the right things to do when in fact they did not have the written word of God that the Israelites since Moses and all people have had since the Old Testament and New Testament were written.
Now the not so good. Smith's narrative was quite unevenly spaced. She had a wealth of Biblical data to choose from and should have written a much longer book. If, as she seemed to be, she was limited to a certain number of pages, she could have done without the divergent focus on Lot and his wife. The book is titled "Sarai" after all. The haphazard narrative spacing results in a rushed ending and summary of the fulfilled promise. That's the part that should have been dwelt on.
This was a good effort but could have been so much better.

Sarai A Novel

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