Rating: 
Summary: The beginning of my literary tour.....
Review: At first, the book is daunting, with all of the names and families and places, so hard to grasp and keep track of. But then, as I struggled, as if I were driven to read this, I found it all falling into place and the era being reminiscent of the biblical stories I have been told only outlines of in my catholic educational roots. From a women's perspective, I found a reason to continue reading these book about the days of Genesis, so as to learn the history of my appointed sexuality, so before I was even finished with this book, I had ordered two more. Sarah and Rebekah, the women of Genesis, (both wonderful book also). But four weeks later I'm at a loss, as I wish I could coninue this subject matter through reading these type of books, yet I fear that I have exhausted the variety. I hope there will be more to come.
I really enjoyed this book, the manner in which the story was told, and the authors historical research that was evident in it's ability to take me back into the biblical stories of the many hours listening to the written word in church.
Rating: 
Summary: At Last! The women have a voice!
Review: Of course this tale is fiction, but it rings with such truth and probability that it made me weep. I wept for the fact that their stories even have to be fictionalized in the first place because we know so little about them. I identified so strongly with the characters of this book that I felt as if I have always known them, because they have been in my dreams and speculation all my life. Dinah speaks directly to the reader as if you are one of her beloved, lost daughters, and by the end you know you are.
Any woman who has suffered the pangs that organized religion forces upon her, and knows deep within her female heart that God does not consider her, with her bleeding, birth, and lactation, inferior at all, will love this book.
I have been in the process of rediscovering the Sacred Feminine, and learning that the fact that she is missing from the scripture has nothing to do with God, but the lack of understanding on the part of the early Christian Fathers. It was their fear, ignorance, and prejudice that took her, the Earth Mother and her daughters, away from us, and it makes my heart soar that women are reclaiming her again, restoring the balance of male and female energies, as a necessary part of our Spirituality. If the need to connect with the Ancient women, the ones who knew all the secrets of the ways to feel fully female and proud in the presence of God, unashamed of their bodies and it's functions, then this book is for you.
The story itself is a kind of allegory for what was done to women's spiritual life in general. When Simon and Levi slit Shalem's throat, they are "avenging" Dinah, or so they said publicly, when in reality they were serving their own purposes and political positions towards the King. The same could be said of the stamping out of the Goddess, the way she was separated from God in our minds in order to "save and protect" us from her. In doing so, we, just like Dinah, we cut off from the very thing we loved and treasured.Thanks, Ms. Diamant, for helping me a little further along the path!
Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of heart or faith...
Review: This was a great book to read if you are a woman, but I doubt it would do much for a man - well, at least most men anyway. However, the plot is a great take-off on the Biblical account of Jacob and his family, and I found reading the story from a young girl's point of view interesting. Ultimately, her maturing into womanhood brought out violence and bad thoughts about Jacob and his sons that I almost wish I didn't have stuck in my mind, but I give the book credit for sticking things in my mind that seem so vivid. I would not recommend this book for the faint of heart, nor the faint of faith. However, I would recommend it to any woman who enjoys a book written from a woman's point of view - bearing in mind that it could have happened this way, but there's no evidence to support that it did.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many names
Review: This book was good. That is about as descriptive as I can get, considering I got an overload of adjectives in the book. Although, I have to say that from reading this book, you can definitely get a feel for the life of a woman during that time period. It was very informative. But there were too many names and it was a slow read.
Rating:
Summary: Simply AWESOME on my all time 10 best list
Review: One reviewer claimed she had not found any men who liked the book. I bought my husband this book on tape and he was as spell bound as I was. This book is amazing. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It doesn't get any better than this. Characters you have heard of/read about your entire life, now brought into technicolor 3-D for you to get to know them up close and personal. The author is obviously very learned about the time period, cultural mores, etc. and she brings ALL that to the table. Simply the most unusual, engaging, unique book I've ever read. Excellent
Rating: 
Summary: Is it only for women?
Review: As someone who strongly disbelieve in labels, I never thought of 'The Red Tent' as a women novel. Many readers talk about it like a wonderful novel. However, I have noticed that most women who read this book enjoy it, while I haven't find many men who tried this novel. From the beginning, Anita Diamant's book didn't get my attention. I found the female characters too good to be true. All the women should have a halo over their heads, because they are almost like saints. They can bear pain, they have good hearts and are full of love, while most men are men and selfish. Gender discussion aside, those people don't appeal me as characters. I found them too one-dimensional, and full of themselves. The narrative in this novel is complicated. The narrator is Dinah, a girl who's briefly mentioned in the bible. On the one hand, Diamant has created her whole story from square one; on the other she didn't have many evidences of what she's been writing. We must bear in mind, that 'The Red Tent' is fiction. The author herself has admitted that in her personal website. There is not proof of the so-called Red Tent, or the bricks mentioned in the novel. As far as fantasy is concerned, the novel didn't work for me. As I have aforementioned, the women are too nice and smart. Most of them sound like martyrs. I don't mean that there aren't --or even weren't, for that matter-- strong women. My issue in this novel is with the narrative itself. As a man, I don't mind reading books that are supposedly for women --albeit I don't believe in such things. Calling bad novels 'book for women' sounds like depreciating women's intelligence. All in all, either being a chick lit or not, The Red Tent did not work for me. And all the hype is meaningless.
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Summary: A CAPTIVATING TAPESTRY OF FILIAL TIES, TOO EXPLICIT AT TIMES
Review: This staggering work veering around Red Tents (the tents where women of yore huddled during their "times of the month") is actually two books interwoven into one. First, it details the imagined lives of Rachel and Leah, two wives of Jacob (both true biblical figures.) This runs for about 70 pages in length and is somewhat less charming I believe. Diamant has written nonfiction books previously, The Red Tent being her first novel, and her documentary-style factual musings show through in this first part of the novel -- I felt I was reading a detailed history of childbirthing, not a novel. But that changes with the second part of the book, the life of Leah's daughter, Dinah. This is where I felt the true story takes off. Dinah, still young, meets Shalem, a handsome Egyptian man of wealth and status and falls in love with him. This infatuation is reciprocated, and for a time the two engage in merry lovemaking. But these joys of communion quickly run dry as a "Romeo and Juliet"-esque drama ensues when their families do not necessarily see eye-to-eye on the proposed union. It's a long novel, and a bit melodramatic if you will. Some descriptions of sexual relations are a bit too explicit for comfort, and made me wonder how they contributed to the novel. But the other bits in the book make it all worthwhile, particularly the female camaraderie -- we get a vivid picture of such bonds among wives, concubines, and the children they raised in concert. The ultimate denouement lends a simple but effective lesson to accept life and its pleasures/travails for what they are. I guess anyone interested in either religious or social history would find this book fascinating. Even for the rest of us, this is an evocative read that I'd recommend in a blink!
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Summary: Not what you might expect! It's better!
Review: The Red Tent is the story of Dinah, a lesser known character from the book of Genesis in the bible. The Red Tents illuminates what life was like in this early century for women. It has tales of love, betrothal, marriage, birth, menstruation and death. The story is told in Dinah's voice and begins with the story of her four mothers and her father, Jacob. Dinah tells of each of the traits that she learned and inherited from each of her mothers. The book then finishes the tale of Dinah's life as she leaves her family's homeland first by choice in search of love and skill of midwifery and then by revenge and hatred of the very men she called brothers. Do not be scared away from this book thinking it is all biblical. It is an excellent FICTIONAL novel that tells a wonderful story.
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Summary: Wonderfully empowering book!
Review: Having been assigned this book in a women's literature class, I was sure I didn not want to read it. Hesitantly, I opened the cover. I was instantly drawn away into the story of Dinah, her four mothers, and the red tent. Theit sisterhood during their times in the red tent is absolutly inspiring. It is a wonderfully descriptive book and I couldn't put it down. I finished it, thoroughly satisfied, in a day and a half. It weaves a tale that is like no other I have read. It is a roller coaster of emotion as is the daily life of anyone who is intune with themselves, their family, and nature around them. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read, and good to the last drop!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but biblically inaccurate
Review: I was at first fascinated with the storytelling in this book. Riveted by the perspective of a woman in ancient biblical times I was eager to read more. However, having studied the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph quite a bit, I began noticing that Anita took a lot of liberties with the accounting of biblical history. In my opinion at book based on the Bible should at least remain true to the facts around which the story is centered. From the love professed between Leah and Jacob to the character of Joseph I found that she dramatically distorted the truth to serve the purposes of her story. I think the story is well written and in any other context (non-biblical) I would have thoroughly enjoyed the book as a great story and a great character. She needed to have found another setting for her character of Dinah to retain her credibility as an author. I don't think I will be reading any more of her bible character based stories.
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