If you’re a fan of Circe, I think you’ll also like this one. Years and years ago, I read The Red Tent, and I’ve been searching for a book that made me feel like that again.

Like with Circe, I felt that this book was written at a distance from the main character. I didn’t quite feel like I was there with her, feeling her emotions along with her, which is important for me when reading a book.

I really wanted to like this, and am generally interested in feminist retellings. However, the writing did not work for me.

This story was inspired by ‘ancient myths and suppressed scriptures.’ It is a beautifully written story of how women came to be suppressed, controlled by men. Lilith, not Eve, is the first woman, although Lilith is banished when she makes it clear that she believes that she is equal to, and not less-than Adam. Adam, of course, disagrees and dismisses any ideas she has because, well, she is a woman, and thus less than him. She couldn’t possibly be capable of ’knowing’ anything of value to him, of having a worthy idea.

This includes several biblical characters Noah, Na'amah - Noah’s wife, Jezebel, Mary Magdalene, and Norea, and more, it also covers ‘events’ that most will recognize, including the building of the Ark, and the story that follows. But this is less a story of the origin of man, or of religion, than it is a telling of the beginning of the subjugation of women.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for this e-arc.

I think this book was too ambitious for me. While it was interesting to learn the mythology of Lilith (I had known NOTHING prior to this), and the writing was beautiful, this book was a SLOG for me. Really great themes of feminism, women's power, true gender equity, but mediocre execution. I did find the alternate portrayal of Jesus super interesting. I wanted to like this book, but it was just a mental struggle for me the whole time.

Happy pub day to this spooky, feminist, retelling. A unique exploration of womanhood through this historically villified character.

I will admit from the start that I did not finish this one. I made it a few chapters in and decided it just wasn't for me.

However, I can see this appealing to readers who really like biblical subversion type books. It was really neat to see Lilith as a character wronged by Adam and seeing a female counterpart to God. I would be interested to hear from a library patron on how everything plays out, but in the end it was not the right fit for me.

Lilith is a beautiful retelling of the first woman on earth, Lilith. First wife of Adam, who was cast out of Eden for failing to bow to her husband. This book takes you through her life after Adam, her search for companionship that is equal, and for those that will praise the Mother of Heaven.

I thought this book had an excellent tie into history and was a definite retelling. Marmery is a wonderful writer, and was able to weave the tale with beautiful prose. Lilith is an interesting character who is wholly herself. She is not there to live for anyone else but her goddess, and although she loves deeply, her love is understanding and warm while not being paramount to who she was. Marmery took a complicated historical figure and made her just as complicated, but gave her depth and wonder. It was interesting to learn more about a history that I am not as well versed in, the history of other religions and how Christianity developed in the early ages.

I also loved a lot of the characters Marmery decided to highlight in this retelling. Characters we didn't get to often see or spend time with, and the way she wove them into the tale was deftly done. That said, the ending and the time Marmery sent during Jesus' time was often a bit on the nose and I almost wished we hadn't spent as much time there, but also we didn't spend enough for all that she wanted to say. It was rushed and convoluted, and some of my least favorite parts was the preaching when the tale she is telling is so much more interesting.

I admit, the beginning of this novel was a little rocky for me. I knew I was walking into a retelling of the Bible, but I had a few gut reactions that come with growing up in Catholic schools. Further, I will not hide the fact that Marmery is not super into Christianity. She writes in-depth about how she views Christianity at the end of the book, so she isn't hiding it. So this isn't for the overly sensitive about religion. It is a beautiful retelling, it is a work of fiction, but it is not created in a vacuum.

I had moments where I struggled with this book and moments where I loved it. I definitely recommend seeing for yourself.

I don't have much prior knowledge or context for the story of Lilith outside of a very basic understanding of her role. The concept of this is really cool, as I DO know that Lilith has become something of a feminist icon in some circles because of her refusal to submit to Adam. But I think that going in with as little knowledge as I did probably hindered my reading experience at least a little bit. I liked seeing Lilith's journey and seeing her interact with various Biblical figures (and really liked the feminist take on her role, as I do find that to be super satisfying), but I was a little lost and found myself having to look up a lot of the Biblical background because of the assumption that I knew what was going on. Which derailed the flow for me.

Regardless, I'm glad that Lilith is getting a revisit in a mainstream mythological retelling. She has always intrigued me as a concept and it was fun seeing her front and center calling out patriarchal oppression.

I have a feeling this book will be a love it or hate it situation. I am actually somewhere in the middle. Letting the feminist retell the stories of the bible from a different point of view is fascinating. I loved the voyage through time and the thought given to the often flat characters of the wives and daughhters of the religious text. Unfortunately, Lilith also seemed flat to me. It was like the author was afraid of making her go to far. In the end, the character wasn’t as fullfilling as she could have been. Still, I’d recommend the book, so that pushed the story up from the center.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

Lilith is a difficult book to review. On one hand, I can think of several people to whom I might suggest the title. On the other, I personally found it disappointing, much better in concept than execution.

And, yeah, the premise sounds amazing--after her expulsion from Eden, Lilith has her sights set on justice. She'll save Eve, restore Asherah, and bring balance back into the world. But as I was reading I was just so underwhelmed by Lilith's character. I didn't care about her, didn't identify with her, didn't find her motives or actions compelling. In fact, for far too much of the book she did far too little. Add to that a boatload of uneven pacing (if you've read already this you'll wonder if that was a Noah allusion), inconsistent tone, and a too-strong too-constant misandric theme, and I found myself just wanting to put the book down (the 'and never pick it up again' is clearly implied here, right?). As someone who loves, loves, loves mythic retellings and biblical fiction, it's hard to believe that I was just the wrong reader for this book.

So, two stars because, in the end, it didn't completely suck. But is that really the bar we're looking for?

I love the story of Lilith, but found that this one wasn't exactly what I was expecting or wanting. That being said, I can definitely see a major appeal in it for a ton of people.

The description for Nikki Marmery’s upcoming novel, Lilith was tailored made for my tastes – it focuses on a character whose depiction in popular culture is ripe for a re-telling, especially with a feminine twist. When it came to the novel’s execution, however, I found the book to be a slog. It has a lot to say and great points to make, but it relied too heavily on a sledgehammer approach for my taste. Additionally, I found Lilith as a narrator to be incredibly frustrating for a number of reasons (the main one being that despite thousands of years of existence she seems incapable of learning much that proves useful and blatantly ignores the obvious – or maybe it’s just that the heavy-handed foreshadowing of her narration makes her feel melodramatic and incompetent). So, while I appreciated the concept and the story did open alternative understandings of familiar figures and stories from the Bible, I found the book didn’t hold my attention or interest very well.

Lilith is getting along fine in Eden in the beginning. But things start to go wrong when she has been gifted the Secret by the goddess Asherah (fruit of the Tree of Knowledge) and Adam begins to abuse her. Driven from Eden, Lilith keeps watch when Eve is created and similarly made subservient by Adam. Prompting her to learn the same Secret so she may escape from Adam’s mistreatment, Lilith must watch through the centuries as the goddess Asherah along with her followers are disparaged and forgotten by Adam’s jealous God and his people. Determined to find Asherah and restore her and her teachings to their rightful place in the world, Lilith suffers many losses and disappointments along the way as she nevertheless continues to find hope that one day the balance of the world will be restored.

I can have a difficult time with first person narratives in general, but there was something in Lilith’s narrative voice that was too flat to work for me, though it fit the character herself. She is immortal and almost a goddess herself at times. She is narrating from a much later period in time after she has endured thousands of years and multitudes of disappointments and grief. It makes sense that she would come across as detached when reflecting on events from hundreds and thousands of years earlier – she is so far removed from the events and the wounds have scabbed over even if they’ve never fully healed. The devastation and grief color her reflections so that she builds up her stories with fore-warnings that they won’t end well. It all makes sense from a story-planning approach. But it also all worked together against my ability to enjoy the novel. A passing familiarity with the Bible and the legends of the figures featured in Lilith meant that the narrator’s fore-warnings were far from necessary and destroyed my ability to invest in the characters, and therefore, to care at all about the novel’s loose plot. The short chapters and jumping around in place and time only exacerbated matters.

This all left me with little more than the themes to try and hold my interest. While I appreciate the way Lilith highlights the ways that women were actively left out and/or their reputations were trampled in the recorded histories and foundational stories throughout the ages, I found the repetitive and heavy-handed way the ideas are presented in Lilith to be tedious. The pacing and structure only exacerbated that feeling of treading water. When I got to the final section of the novel and the overarching thread of Lilith’s personal mission gets resolved, it didn’t feel like it carried the weight it was meant to. For me, both Lilith as a character and that overarching thread were a way to tie together the main figures and stories that Marmery actually wanted to focus on but which were too far apart in time to link in a concrete way. Unfortunately, that connective tissue is just too flimsy.

Lilith is available October 10, 2023.

I made it to about 20% before I DNFd. It just didn't hold my attention. I do respect the ambitious attempt at a biblical retelling and I love the feminist view point. While it didn't grip me, I'm sure it will work for others.

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for retellings. I especially have a soft spot in my heart for books based on religious stories. This story actually got me pretty good. A reimagining of the story of creation. I was very much not on board with Jezebel. That little section of the story was meh for me. but I loved the feminist retellings.

This was not for me. I could not get into the story felt like it was all over the place. I am not one who really cares for retellings. I am not the target person for this one.

Lilith
by Nikki Marmery
Fiction Religion Mythology
NetGalley ARC
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
Alcove Press
Ages: 18+

A feminist retelling of Lilith, Adam's first wife.

This book is compared with the novel by Madeline Miller, and I agree with that comparison. I read the first 16% and then started to skim because it was boring, just like Miller's book.

While it was an interesting concept; Lilith is really a good person, and God actually has a female partner, but God and Adam are men and they have to control and what they can't control they abuse/lie about, and the things in the 'bible' weren't all true, women were intended to be equals but men... etc, etc...

But the story had no depth, as if written for middle/high school textbooks, with just enough detail so it could possibly keep kids' attention for more than five minutes.

I was expecting more details, more life to this character because she was supposed to be the first woman, powerful, but she and everyone else were all flat. Maybe if the author didn't rely so heavily on biblical references, they could have created a much more admirable character that women could believe in and start a real change in the controlling male dominated religions.

1 Star

Lilith, the legendary first wife if Adam, leaves the garden of Eden. From that moment, she makes it her mission to restore balance to the world, to overthrow the hierarchal and misogynistic religion of the Judeo-Christian Yahweh.

For someone raised as a Christian who became a mythology geek, this is close to the perfect book. We follow Lilith into the surrounding Mesopotamian world, where we encounter a multitude of gos and goddesses competing with the jealous Yahweh. Through the myth of the flood to Jezebel to Jesus and Mary Magdalene, key moments in the Judeo-Christian mythos are revisited through the experiences of Lilith. At every turn, we see how women and the feminine was suppressed. How a way of being that involved cooperation—rather than domination—was nearly lost to us, preserved in secret by the descendants of Lilith.

I can recommend this book for anyone who loves mythology and is interested in a convincing take on how things could have been different of Adam was not allowed to set himself over his wives.

The writing was excellent on each page. Along with Lilith and the other biblical women, I wept, sobbed, and cried out in anger as their tales were portrayed through a fresh perspective. Viewed through the eyes of a woman who is understanding of them rather than a man who is in charge.

I didn't even know certain parts of myself were there, much less broken, but this book healed them. After reading this book, I feel more complete than I have in all the years I've studied the Bible.

In exchange for my honest evaluation, I am grateful to Netgalley and Alcove Press for the digital galley.

As much as I wanted to enjoy this, I simply could not get into it. The pacing was awkward, which makes sense considering the timespan but was in need of some cuts. There were elements that could have been compelling, especially near the end, but weren't fleshed out nearly enough while other elements dragged on.
The takes on feminism lacked nuance, making everything feel incredibly black and white. Basically every single man was irredeemably evil, and Lilith is a perfect human being, even though she stood by and did nothing for a good portion of the story. Additionally, the final take seems to be that the end goal in life, and the way to immortality and happiness, is through having children, which I personally did not love.
The history was very well researched from what I could gather, but the execution was not for me.

A triumphant feminist retelling of the oft-maligned Lilith, Nikki Marmery's novel is a masterpiece in myth retelling. Written in a conversational style, the novel follows Lilith's fall from Paradise and her quest for revenge with matter-of-fact precision.

A telling story of human nature, Lilith's quest brings her into contact -- and conflict -- with other big-names in the Biblical world, like Noah and his wife Norea, Queen Jezebel, and Mary Magdalene.

When I say I could hardly put this book down, I mean it. I was reading it on the plane to a friend's bachelorette party weekend and used every moment of downtime to get through a few more pages. It was that intriguing!