The characters aren't likable people. It was Jonah's relationship with Zoey that made me realize I knew a Jonah or two and for a good time, avoid having lunch with these people. Maybe I knew a Judith too, but there wasn't as much investment in Judith, so I found it difficult to get to know her. Is she a heroine or merely meant to be saved by Jonah? It seems like Feldman spent so much time building Jonah's story of how he got to Amsterdam (which was time well spent), that he forgot to work on the latter half of the book.

That said, Feldman has promise as a writer. ( )

Wasn't what I had hoped it would be. Started with a strong, character-driven introduction but I quickly lost interest when Judith was introduced early in the book. Didn't finish the read-through.

The Book of Jonah, the debut novel by Joshua Max Feldman, is a richly provocative story about the disassembling of one’s life security and agenda, its accumulation of success in various forms, and the inevitable question and role of morality, and the power of faith and change when the two, polar beliefs collide, conflict, and agitate until life itself almost dissolves.

Those who are familiar with the original book of Jonah in the Bible will recognize not only its title, but the thematic similarities between Jonah Jacobstein’s predicament and resistance in this modern, contemporary version and the original text.

The book is wonderfully character-driven filled with fully realized characters that engage the reader in visualizing their superficial and/or naive sensibilities, the magnitude of their personal failings, even their loss.

And because Feldman writes with intelligence and articulate precision, the voice of his characters, especially that of its main character, Jonah Jacobstein, is clear, realistic, and very male in his ambition, rhetoric, denial, and self-doubt.

While Jonah’s life as he recognizes it dissolves into a series of unexplainable visions and bouts of harried panic, Jonah faces the inadequacy of his relationship with the brisk snobbery and self-entitled coldness of his tycoon girlfriend, Sylvia, and the emotionally unstable drama of his long-time love and mistress, Zoey. While both women differ as much as polar opposites do, their extremities pull Jonah in a dishonest and destructive duality, one that is inevitably immoral, exhausting, and unhealthy.

To read the rest of this review, you're more than welcome to visit my blog, The Bibliotaphe Closet at: http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com

- Zara ( )

The audio kept me listening but I tended to not worry too much when I was busy enough with what else I was doing to sort of half-listen! The book is a Jonah story---on top of the world! And then...at the bottom. Because we are following more than just Jonah's life. the author did give a good summary at the end about those other characters, which I always appreciate rather than just have a story sort of drop off a cliff and end. The audio does provide the story of the biblical Jonah in the last two tracks of the final disk. ( )

I received The Book of Jonah through the LT Early Reviewers program.

The Book of Jonah starts slow; introducing characters who aren't really likable, who aren't really doing anything out of the ordinary. But then Jonah is touched by the sublime (possibly) and the book starts to pick up speed.

The majority of this book is an exploration of certainty-how do you know if you're chosen? Is there any indicator that God will touch your life? And if you are chosen, how do you know what to do? What does it mean to be chosen? This uncertainty and back-and-forth is the greatest strength in The Book of Jonah. I found that the 336 pages flew by. The topic, characters, setting, and atmosphere were all perfectly portrayed and fully realized.

The only fault I found was that it ended too abruptly (is there a second novel in the works?)and I was left wanting more. Both Jonah's and Judith's storyline felt like they were building up dramatically through the whole novel...but ended up petering out. It may be an intentional effect, a statement on modern life...or just a weak ending. It's hard to say. ( )