What I said about the last one is basically true here too. It’s just a fun story that sits perfectly in my wheelhouse of awesome ladies in historical settings doing magic.
Two observations: this book, and the last one, turn almost entirely on female friendships and the fact that women are nearly never catty to one another for no reason. I was kind of annoyed at the one vile and catty woman in this one, although she was the exception rather than the rule, but overall, the relationships between women shine, both platonic and romantic, and stand at the heart of this story.
Second, this is NOT a story about women’s ordination in the orthodox Jewish community. But reading it, I saw so many parallels between what Cassandra goes through as the “first” and the struggle to gain legitimacy and the question of what you do when you fail. And what everyone, men and women, stand to lose when you upend the status quo. It felt VERY real indeed.
And it was also a sweet fantasy book about women changing the world so, you know, depths and all that.