Daughters

For the blog’s 600^th book review, it would have been nice to come up with a great book. Not only is this one off-genre for Men Reading Books, it was not a great read for me. I considered quitting the book several times, but I slogged ahead. I’m drawn to epic historical dramas, multigenerational stories about specific ethnic groups or geographical areas. This one seemed to fit the bill even if the title is a bit distant from the kind of books we normally read. Daughters by Consuelo Saah Baehr is about three generations of Palestinian women starting in the late 1800’s, pre-WWI, up to the late 1950s. The story is mostly about the tension from one generation to the next as the world around them changes. It was not an anti-Jew propaganda novel. Baehr does a good job portraying the battle between staying true to tradition and adapting to a constantly modernizing world. The author’s main characters were impressive women, but I found the character development to have been overly tedious. Perhaps it is an accurate reflection of the culture and the times, but the love relationships evolved very, very slowly. This was not an uplifting book as tragedy begat tragedy. The writing itself was excellent. The historical information was helpful, but if you decide to read this, be prepared to take your time wading through details.