Book Review: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

The concept of People of the Book is extraordinary. I wanted to read it because The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish is one of my favorite books, and it has an extremely similar premise: intertwining past and present POVs as a scholar tries to figure out the history of an old manuscript. They both also have strong Jewish themes and deal a lot with Jewish history. But where The Weight of Ink excelled, People of the Book faltered. 

The Weight of Ink had both strong characters and a compelling plot that made for an investing read; People of the Book only had the strong premise, and I could hardly care less about any of the characters, much less the present-day protagonist, Hanna. Maybe because there were so many characters. Instead of alternating between one present-day protagonist and one historical protagonist, there were multiple historical protagonists because the book passed through so many hands. Which arguably sounds more fascinating, but I think the writing made it feel a bit dry, because the prose was mostly plain. I also had to question why she included some of the historical POVs, because one or two felt barely relevant to the story of the haggadah (thinking about the prolonged Jewish doctor’s POV whose role could have been summed up in a few sentences).

That being said, the historical chapters were much more interesting than Hanna’s, because I was straying more to the dislike side of ambivalence when it came to her character. She only avoided being an unlikeable character because she lacked depth. A lot of her story felt contrived. And using a dying child’s brain scans just as a plot point for an argument with Hanna’s mother to further their antagonism didn’t sit right with me.

I also noticed that Brooks started the book with Hanna’s chapters written in first person, and the historical chapters written in third person, but at the end, two historical chapters were also written in first person. Which at first didn’t make any sense to me, but I realized the first of those two historical chapters was written in first person to hide a gender twist. The second one, I have no idea. It made me question if the writing style was as thoughtful as I would have liked. 

I did really enjoy the history that the book explored, even if a lot of the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah was mostly fictionalized. It was obviously well-researched, and I’m glad I read this book if just to learn about the history of the haggadah. I just wish it was written more compellingly.