Details
Rent Incantation
Author:
Format: Quality Paperback, Unabridged-CD, Unabridged-MP3
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Published: Oct 2007
Genre: Children & Young Adults Fiction - Girls & Women
Retail Price: $12.99
Ages: 12 - 17 Pages: 192
Synopsis
Estrella is a Marrano: During the time of the Spanish Inquisition, she is one of a community of Spanish Jews living double lives as Catholics. And she is living in a house of secrets, raised by a family who practices underground the ancient and mysterious way of wisdom known as kabbalah. When Estrella discovers her family's true identity--and her family's secrets are made public--she confronts a world she's never imagined, where new love burns and where friendship ends in flame and ash, where trust is all but vanquished and betrayal has tragic and bitter consequences.
Infused with the rich context of history and faith, in her most profoundly moving work to date, Alice Hoffman's first historical novel is a transcendent journey of discovery and loss, rebirth and remembrance.
Reviews
The narrator's accent is interesting, but the sound needed to be clearer so it didn't get in the way. A nice listen that address prejudice and religious intolerance. Certainly relevant today. However, I would imagine that one of the themes of the story is identity. Estrella is certain she is a Christian only to find out her parents and brother have secretly been Jews the whole time. Yet her identity does not undergo a crisis she accepts it easily as her family is slaughtered. I understand the author did not want to have a doctinal debate, but to overlook it entirely, seems a shameful gap in the narrative.