Chain Reading

I was actually very disappointed in this book. Familiar as I am with the story of Ruth, I was hoping for fresh insight and perspective. There's a lot of potential for allegory and characters with depth in the story of Ruth, but this is exactly where this book fell flat. It felt shallow; I never really understood Naomi's pain, even though the book spent considerable time explaining and rambling about it; Ruth was irritating rather than inspiring in her faith, which I suppose I thought was shallow because she never experienced the sort of internal and daily conversion, take-up-your-cross struggle that every person of faith is so familiar with. For her, especially as a former pagan, this should have been evident and a powerful theme. The book also deals extensively with Ruth's having to overcome rejection in a strange land, underscoring prejudice and gossip, which unfortunately are ideas that go nowhere.

Overall, though I am far from saying that it has no place, adding drama to the story was unnecessary, and detracted in the long run from the book's real potential. Ruth is a beautiful story as the Bible tells it with depth enough for a much longer book than this.