It got better---tighter writing, more interesting---as it went on: I'm glad I finished it. Many Midrashim about Vashti are referenced near the end of the book. I liked the explanation of why Vashti's version of the book's events will be different from and better than what actually happened. ( )

Just in time for the holiday of Purim, this novel is very timely. There are three stories about women at different time periods. Esther is the heroine of the bible story about saving her people. This version is darker with a surprising conclusion. Vivian is a senator's wife in the early 1970's. When her husband asks her to do something humiliating, her reaction sets of a number of life changing events. Lily is a troubled young mother in contemporary times. She is faced with a life that she doesn't quite seem to manage. How the stories come together is very interesting. One theme that is very much of our times is the refusal of Vashti-the queen in Esther's story. Today her actions are seen are not treasonable but very correct. And this novel reconciles how Vashti might have changed history within the telling of the traditional story. ( )

I honestly do not know how to feel about this book - I did enjoy reading it, but something just felt incomplete. ( )

This trio of tales in the manner of The Hours by Michael Cunningham did not resonate with me. The biblical Esther; a politician’s wife, humiliated by her ambitious and sexually abusive husband; and a mother of two without ambition to be more – none were particularly inspiring nor dramatic. There’s a surprise twist between two of the stories, some magic and magical realism by Esther, and the appearance of the unknown-to-me Vashti, Esther’s predecessor wife, that add flavor but the meal still feels endless and purposeless. The writing is fluid and enjoyable, but I couldn’t appreciate the protagonists nor the plots.

Quote: “Something has cracked in her, a pocket of fear she didn’t know existed has burst its seams and it turns out to be infinite, an infinitely renewable resource that rages through her like fire; if in one moment it calms to coal, the next a wind comes through, reigniting the flames.” ( )

In ancient Persia, Queen Vashti is disposed of (dead? banished?), and Queen Esther ascends - but finds she has no real power of her own, and even the king is under the sway of his evil minister.

In 1973, a politician's daughter and a Senator's wife is caught in a Vashti-like situation at a party in her home in Washington, D.C., and flees to her friend's home in Gloucester, MA.

In 2016, Lily reckons with her choice to be a stay-at-home mom to two daughters in Brooklyn, though she knows her mother, Ruth, wishes she would have a career as well.

Vashti and Esther's story echoes through Vee and Lily's stories, which prove to be connected. All storylines examine the gendered distribution in power: stark in ancient Persia and in the 1970s, more subtle but still present in 2016.

See also: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd, People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

Quotes

"I wish it were different."
"Then make it different." (Esther's aunt and Esther, 22)

It's exhausting, to indoctrinate. And always the truth bleeds through. There would be no need to indoctrinate if there was nothing to cover up. (Lily, 75)

What if she could simply want what she has? (Lily, 81)

Her mother has always done this, and always it makes Lily feel as if she's been pickpocketed. She knows this is unfair, that they are both allowed to have the same common human thoughts. (Lily, 134)

"Being kind isn't the same as letting yourself off the hook." (Ruth to Lily, 137)

You can want something and still fully want another thing. That they conflict does not mean you are conflicted. (Lily, 170)

Vee knows she often can't tell the difference between what she wants and what she thinks she should want, but knowing this doesn't make it any easier to tell the difference. (181)

What she doesn't understand is keeping a thing that you know wants to escape. (Esther, 193)

She throws her mind at her childhood like a net. (Lily, 231)

"She was the kind of private person who wears a face that makes her seem like a public person." (Vee to Lily about Rosemary/Ruth, 247)

The more people she knew, the more she liked being alone. (Vee, 271)

...not yet coherent but cohering: an understanding of Ruth as something not solid but assembled, built of everything she could grab hold of....Ruth had to be and build herself at the same time. (Lily, 299) ( )