What of me? Did he mention me? Did he repent of what he did to me?
He said nothing of you. Dinah is forgotten in the house of Jacob.

*2018 Re-read *

Recently I watched the 2014 two part episode of this book starring Minnie Driver, Rebecca Ferguson, and Iain Glen. Like any good reader that has read a book years before a screen version(and Goodread) appears, I wanted to see how my memory has held up and if this book still has that "wow" factor that I recall.

Although I still would consider this biblical fiction one of my favorites, I have to be true to my profile criteria and re-adjust a 5 star to the 4 star it deserves. Translation: While it won't be placed in my casket, I definitely would still recommend to other readers. The female relationships are the very core of this story and Anita Diamant does a stunning job of breathing new life into the Leah/Rachel/Jacob drama in the OT book of Genesis by focusing on Jacob and Leah's daughter Dinah.

We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote, my story a brief detour between the well known history of my father, Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother. On those rare occasions when I was remembered, it was as a victim. Near the beginning of your holy book, there is a passage that seems to say I was raped and continues with the bloody tale of how my honor was avenged.

But what happened to Dinah? Well, that was where I do notice(the second time) The storyline really accelerated, but still I felt satisfied with the ending. As per the series, well it kept the core, added a few dramatic moments and didn't add quite so much genealogy of Jacob's family.

I'll have to think about this...I may go back and add another star, depending on what stays with me. I think if I wasn't reading this book through a Latter-day Saint lens, I would have given it four stars, because the prose is absolutely gorgeous.
This is the story of Dinah, the sister of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Levi, Joseph, Benjamin, etc., etc. You know, the twelve sons of Jacob. It is written by Anita Diamant, and does a wonderful job of giving motivation to all the things that happen from the time Jacob meets Rachel through where Simeon (she calls him Simon) and Levi kill Dinah's husband.

She also does a beautiful, heart-tenderizing job of tying each of us as women to the concourse of womanhood from the beginning of time. My friend gave me this book for Christmas. As I read about the ties of womanhood, I realize what she was thinking of as she gave me this book, for she and I, and she and my mother, and I and her mother are all tied together by many of the red strings that Ms Diamant speaks of. The reason I had to put off reading it for five months is that I've been teaching a class in Old Testament, and since it's been about fifteen years since I've taught the class, or even studied the Old Testament, I've not had discretionary time to read. However, it was a wonderful segue into this book. The scenes in the King James Version are still fresh in my mind, and I was able to appreciate how she wove them in.

However, her treatment of Joseph has left a bad taste in my mouth. Though she has the tale come from an enemy of Joseph's, the word is that he bedded Potipher's wife, rather than the story we get in Genesis. In that and in other things she paints him as an opportunist and hints that he is gay.

But then, that is Dinah talking, and she never has forgiven her brothers. But, listen to one of her final paragraphs: Egypt loved the lotus because it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name--two syllables, one high, one sweet--summon up the innumerable smiles and tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.

Ah, what the heck. I'll give it four stars. That's what will stay with me.

While I enjoyed the parts about midwifery and wish that a place like the Red Tent really did exist, I think that the author got the story all wrong. She turned all the men in the book, including men like Jacob and Joseph, into sex crazed, egotistical, superstitious bigots. I think she took WAY TOO much creative license and basically re-wrote the bible to her liking. In some part she didn't even try to be historically accurate with what the bible says.For example, she says that Joseph and Potifar's wife were lovers for a long time till he got caught, when in the bible it clearly says that Joseph ran away!
Also, much of her focus is on Goddess worship, which many of the people would have practiced in that time. But I think it does a great injustice to Jacob to say that he wouldn't have taught his wives about Jehovah, and a greater injustice to think that Rachel and Leah would have continued to worship idols even after they had learned about the one true God.
Anyway, while I didn't like the author's take on the story I did really love idea of the Red Tent and the birth stories. It made me wish that we had more rituals in our culture that celebrated a woman's coming of age. I LOVED the way a girl was initiated into womanhood when she got her period, and how bleeding each month and being pregnant were looked upon as a great privilege rather than an embarrassment and hassle. It is sad how we as women don't treat our bodies as the amazing gifts that they are.

My mom got me this book for Christmas mainly because she wanted to read it. I read the summary on the back and I was intrigued, but wasn't intending to pick it up right away until my mom demanded that I read it as soon as possible so she could read it. So I did. I read it in a day.

I'm a fast reader no matter what, but give me a good book, I'll finish it faster than usual. This book was good. Excellent. I was drawn in with the first word. There were stories within stories and I was able to follow each and every one of them and become absorbed.

Diamant's writing took me back to this time period, and instead of pointing out all that was bad and raw in a time we often look back on as savage and uncivilized, she points out and embraces everything that was wonderful. Or at least she writes in such a way you look at it as completely normal and okay. I was also surprised how much these people embraced womanhood, when often when you hear about those times it's all about how women were submissive and cursed, born only to be slaves to men. But the women in nearly every culture Dinah passed through were respected for the most part, and held some sort of power. This is not the time when men began stepping on the women. Something happened between then and now that changed the view of womanhood to be ugly and wrong.

Speaking of the women, the one problem I had was that the women the first third of the book was dedicated to, just ended up disappearing. We were lead to fall in love with these women, only to have them later have them fall off the radar. It's not a huge flaw, because Dinah has to lose them as well, and they fall of her radar as well and we do learn what happened to them in the end, but still...

Other than that one small, but understandable flaw, this book was fantastic. Dinah goes on an amazing journey and it is told beautifully in her voice. Diamant has a wonderful gift as a storyteller. Do yourself a favor and sit down with this book, you will hear Dinah speak and you will feel the gritty, dirty, wonderful world she lives in. Don't let the fact that it was taken from the Bible deterr you. Diamant writes in such a way that if you are familiar with the Bible things come up and you're like, "Hey!" But, if you're not religious at all, she writes so that you aren't shut out from a special world, you are welcomed and embraced and the story is still just as wonderful.

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

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Ouch. What a slog this friggin’ thing was. The Red Tent has literally been pushed on me by real life friends/family/acquaintances for the past 10 years. Being a not-so-religious type of gal, I actively avoided it knowing it would most likely not be my cuppa, as well as to keep the peace. When the library challenge came around requesting readers to “push their shelf” I figured it was time to bite the bullet. Now I only hope that this doesn’t accidentally get shared to Facebook so I can continue pretending I’m not a complete heathen.

The Red Tent is Dinah’s (fictional) “memoir” which tells the stories of herself and her family passed from woman to woman the first week after the new moon while they all cohabitate in the red tent due to . . . .

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It confirms the theory that if you put a group of females together long enough, they will all surf the crimson wave at the same time each month.

It also is a great example of how we should maintain the sanctity of marriage between and a man and a woman FOUR women. Yeah, don’t let those homosexuals cheapen things, let’s go back to sisterwives of the bible times! /endsarcasm

Oh and you ladies don’t need to worry about becoming a bridezilla or “saying yes to the dress.” According to the Old Testament, all you have to do is make the sexuals with your crush and you will officially be wed.

Feel free to worship false idols as well. Especially if you can steal them from your molesty, wife-beating granddaddy ‘cause that bastard sure as hell doesn’t deserve them.

Oh, and are those 12 sons (and god knows how many nameless daughters since females are stupid and shouldn’t even bothered being mentioned) wearing you out? See your sister/husband’s other wife and she’ll hook you up with some morning after herbs. Just don’t ask the government to pay for it!

I know, I know, I know . . . .

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Save your breath.

The one thing this book did was prove that all the religious zealots are just as fucking nutty as I always thought they were. Try reading more than Leviticus before becoming morally outraged. For the people like me who aren’t so bible-y? If you like world building, this is a winner. You’ll hear all about walking across the desert and great details about EVERY. SINGLE. THING. THEY. ATE. (spoiler alert: bread, goat cheese, olives and beer - for every fucking meal - but it was still written about EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.) What you won’t be privy to is anything that is actually interesting. Like slicing the throats of every man in an entire city. Because, what kind of flatbread they had for dinner is definitely more important than genocide . . . . .

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2 Stars (barely).

Book #3 in my quest for new free crap. Go me!

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Overall: I have mixed feelings on this book. Dinah is a minor character in the Bible yet the author really brings her to life in this novel. The writing is lovely but overall I just found this book a bit boring 3/5 or 6/10

Summary: The story follows Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah, sister of Joseph throughout her life from childhood through adulthood. Dinah is the only daughter and thus is allowed to enter the Red Tent (a tent that all women must enter during their menstrual cycles or when giving birth) early and spent time with her mothers. The beginning starts by focusing on her relationship with her mothers then follows her as she falls in love and subsequently becomes a prominent midwife.

The Good: Dinah is a good character and there is a lot of character development and depth which helped bring her to life. The author is a good writer with lots of lovely descriptions thoroughout. The writing style grabbed me and helped me remain pretty focused throughout.

The Bad: I can't really put my finger what made me just like this book. Generally boring overall was my biggest complaint.

Favorite Quotes:

“The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”

“If you want to understand any woman, you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. ”

I read this story over Mother's Day weekend so my take on it is the celebration of womanhood. I was absolutely fascinated by this time in history that is so vastly differnt from our modern times. I think if you are overly conservative and only look at the biblical inaccuracies you will miss out on a story with a gorgeous prose. I would caution you to read this as it is a work of "fiction". This is a family saga Diamant loosley wove biblical history into. told thru Jacob's only daughter Dinah and shows her POV from birth to her death. She becomes enemy of her father and his 12 sons so they are not shead in a good light. It shows the workings of her heart from her loneliness, horror, rage, depression, career and bonds with women.
I took from this story to embrace my womanhood because we are shown to celebrate womanhod and coming of age from almost the beginning of time. It did make me wish we had more of a celebration or passage into our own coming of age. We should have a ritual of the changing of girl to womanhood(without the pagan or goddess worship shown in this tale, of course!)

I was intrigued into the early skills of midwifery. They were very detailed and showed the harsh lifestyle of the times. I adored the bonds these women shared in The red tent. They used the tent for a place when they went during menstruation, sickness, nursing and birth of their children. It was a place they could be seperated from the world of men. This is a tale that well linger with me for a very long time and I look forward to reading it again and sharing it with other women I'm close to.

I will never finish reading this. I hate misogynist books and I hate misandrist books even more because they are so hypocritical.

This book pretty much craps on the bible. I'm not a Christian, but I do hate when people take creative license without explanation. Since when is Laban a child molester? Since when did Rachel and Leah agree to dupe Jacob into marrying Leah?

I'm a mythology purist, which is why I don't like the Percy Jackson series, but at least Rick Riordan doesn't go out of his way to insult those who know a little bit about the Greeks. It's like the author of this book purposefully went about skimming The Bible's Cliff Notes, then decided to write a crappy feminist perspective book.

Basically she makes things up without giving a better reason than, 'Oh, history might say this, but this is how it really happened.' She is no better than Meyer in that respect.

No males are portrayed positively in this book. None.

I hate every character in the book. I couldn't even read it long enough to get to where Dinah came in. I had to read sparknotes for the rest of it. Joesph is apparently portrayed as a whiny, stereotypical, gay man. I wonder if the author has ever talked with a gay man before. Dinah was never raped. Thanks for crapping on rape victims, apparently forced sex with a man you don't know is mutual love.

I can't believe this is taught in schools. Women of Genesis: Rachel and Leah, by Orson Scott Card, is so much better than this.

Qué belleza de libro. Me quedo sobre todo con el final, precioso y redondo y con el significado de la palabra madre. La que te trae al mundo pero no solo ella, también las maestras que encontramos a lo largo de nuestra vida, las amigas, las mujeres que te quieren. Es cierto que hay muchísima presencia masculina y la mayoría de las cosas giran en torno a los hombres. Aún así, se respira la sororidad, el apoyo y el amor entre mujeres. Me he sentido abrigada leyéndolo, y con esa sensación me voy.

A stunning saga that gives voice to one of histories most fascinating and mysterious women. Through lush and stirring prose, we see the ancient ways of womanhood, storytelling, love, and grief, and how the ties that bind us are more vital and lasting than we realize. We wonder along with Dinah: what does love truly mean? When does forgiveness become an option? At what price do we pursue pride and desire? Who is telling our stories? How do we begin to reveal the truth? Gorgeous, tragic, and graceful, the Red Tent is a tribute to the heart and soul, to dreams and desire, to truth.

This book was recommended to me from a Christian friend. I don't think it will ever cease to amaze me the stark differences in standards within the Christian faith...call me what you will, I am a bible believing, non-compromising Christ follower and this book in no way leaves one with the lessons Christ hopes to leave us with in His Word. For no reason do I need to read about some of the offensive material in this book. It paints a picture of ignorant, sex-driven men an a world of competitive women. Sadly, that is a picture of the world today- a world I refuse to be a part of and call my own. This book isn't biblical, hopeful, new, or enlightening. I give it a single star only because there isn't a lower rating. Huge disappointment...pass if you have high standards.

It doesn't matter at all what is fiction and what is history in this book - it is just as lovely to imagine what it would be like if such a custom as "the red tent" did exist. I have now finished the book. WOW! Diamant truely moves our emotions. The beauty of birth, the sorrows AND wonders of aging, the horror of injustice - elements that are a part of all lives. The ending of the book is so beautiful and profound. What exactly is it that we want to reap from our lives? What hurts most? To be totally forgotten, isn't that the cruelest fate? For me this was a central point of the novel! What do others think?

The "red tent" did not really prevent hatred or jealousy among women. Remember how Leah and Rachael continued to feel towards each other. They merely controled their emotions. In the red tent they slept on opposite sides of the tent. However their emtions remained. They were quick to charge at the other as conflicts arose. I would say that life itself taught the women to love each other. It was each womean's struggle through life that taught them to forgive each other. Remember that Leah gave to Dinah (via Judah) Rachael's lapis ring.

Furthermore, it was not only Dinah but also Benia who understood the significance of this act. Many readers disparage Diamant's characterizations of the men in the novel. Some say the men characters are "flat". I think this is wrong because she gives them insight and tenderness too. Men and women do see things differently. We do act differently, but that is not to say one is weaker or less capable or less worthy than the other.

I also loved how different characters were allowed to be different. From birth people are just plain different. What a bore if we were all the same!

I loved the book because it taught me a bit about biblical times and it gave me a lot to ponder. I want to read more about biblical times and customs. That is what a good book will do.