LitPick Review
Stein weaves a carefully crafted web of plot. The protagonist Miriam has visions where she encounters angels. She also supposedly has missions to fulfill for God. She makes it her primary objective to accomplish these tasks and even flees her hometown to try and escape her visions. Interestingly enough, her mother is a former nun, and her father is a rabbi. As for her twin brother Mo (short for Moses), he claims to have visions from the devil. The dichotomy of good versus evil and chance versus destiny are blinding. There is some swearing, but it is from a troubled character and only in a few instances of dialog. There is also some romance but it is not graphic. The notion of how Miriam thinks and how she thirsts for a man for fulfillment is more repulsing.
Opinion:
God is spoken of in this book. However, there is not really any heavy theology or even the notion of Jesus being brought up. Some ideas about God incurring wrath on a works (what you do for God) basis is also wrong. Themes like angels and demons and good versus evil arise. The story starts off kind of shaky, but eventually picks up and hooks the reader. Some little errors are in the book. It is stated that rabbis take the Bible to be true. Jews only take the Torah (Old Testament or first half of Bible) to be true since they deny Jesus Christ. Also, the angel Raphael is mentioned as being a "Christian" angel. In actuality, Raphael is not even mentioned in the Bible. His name appears in the apocrypha; these are books not in the Bible (due to heresies and obvious contradicitons).
