For Such a Time as This

So...really, I think the issue is that this book never decides what its true identity is. Is it a romance? A drama? A play on an older tale? A mystery? And thus the plot suffers confusion and inconsistencies.

I wish I hadn't known this was meant as an Esther retelling. As a take on a theme, the plot was widely deviant and failed in its dissimilarities. Rather than accentuating something, it undermined the book's stated purpose. It would have been one thing if she had used the title verse as a life inspiration, which she did...but a retelling did not happen here. It would take some invention to recognize the storyline of Esther here. Also, some of the characters changed too much, like her father...he went from being a steady, worried farmer to a man who tried to force his daughter to ruin her relationship with her husband. He had to have known the past gossip and yet still wanted to force his daughter to ask her husband for a large request, but wasn't man enough to bring it up himself when he had the man right in front of him. She was put in a bad situation and I did not like the parents' sense of entitlement that they expected a newlywed to do what they had no courage to. Because I hated the situation, I had little sympathy for the farmers and thus little sense of urgency about the problem.

Edit 5/17: Recalling a book with a sense of irritation is making me drop my rating from three to two stars and put the book in a giveaway stack.