Review of A Voice in the Wind
Content Warning: This book contains some adult content such as catamites, rape, mentions to sex, descriptive kissing, lesbian/ gay references, whores, descriptive abortion, death, and heavy, sad material. This book is intended for mature audiences, though it is a Christian book, therefore reducing the sexuality and inappropriateness of the book.
What It's About
A Voice in the Wind is a Christian fiction novel in the Mark of the Lion trilogy. It is set in ancient Rome, where Jews are persecuted and killed for their faith. The first book is about a young Jewish woman named Hadassah as she is ripped from her starving family by Roman soldiers and forced into slavery. Hadassah is bought by a rich family, though the son and daughter of her owners, Julia and Marcus, start to notice something strange about Hadassah; she is a Christian in a world of paganism and idol worship. Being a Christian meant persecution and hatred from all of those around her, forcing Hadassah to keep her religion secret. They see her pray every day in the garden, in her room, and even in public. Julia also sees Hadassah's impartial, limitless kindness in any circumstance. Marcus sees a beautiful, smart woman, and tries to act as Hadassah does.
But Julia and Marcus have wicked sides beneath the joy and love they often put on display. Julia starts to see and take the advice of another woman; this woman tells her that her life is her own, even going so far as to sleep with her. Marcus, meanwhile, regularly visits the brothels around Rome, and takes pleasure in making the woman he supposedly "loves" hurt. Hadassah prays and tries to help the brother and sister change, but will it be enough?
What I Liked
This book is a very heavy book, though Rivers writes in a way that reduces the amount of sexuality by a lot. When I read this book for the first time, the scenes I described above just made me feel sad; sad for the characters, in the way that if you see a kid fall off a bike in a movie, you feel sad. And, to be clear, this factor does not take away how well this book was written, or how the storyline goes. The sadness makes you as the reader feel as if you are best friends with Hadassah and Julia and Marcus, like you have experienced the same things as them. This is such a rare feature in modern literature that it elevated these books to my Top Ten list.
The effort and time put into this book definitely shows, through the characters, the faith, the story, and the perfect amount of historical accuracy mixed with the perfect amount of fiction.
What I Disliked
Above this, I know that I said some parts of this book were sad and that was good, but some parts of this book were undeniably cruel and depressing. Abortion is described, though not too in depth, and the overall setting of those chapters was absolutely and maddeningly sad. The ending was also very shocking at first, until I read the second book, which focuses mainly on Marcus.
Conclusion
A Voice in the Wind is a perfect Christian fiction book, mixing in historical accuracy and fictional details in an amazing way. Though the book can be melancholy at times, the overall setting is that of redemption, forgiveness, and kindness!
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