TEN THOUSAND LOVERS (Edeet Ravel) - March 5/13

I basically enjoyed this one, although it feels as though it's been expanded from a novella or a long short story. Ravel does this weird (and fairly useless) thing where she breaks up the story with definitions of Hebrew words and expressions, which I kind of got annoyed with after a while, as it ruined the flow and momentum of the otherwise interesting story. And though I enjoyed the romance between Lily and Ami, the narrative is occasionally a little too heavy handed (ie there's some serious speechifying going on here). The final stretch is subsequently not as strong as everything leading up to it, and Ami's death, though tragic, didn't really affect me like I thought it would. (It was telegraphed awfully early, which doesn't help.) A decent yet uneven debut from Ravel. **1/2 out of ****