The Prophetess by Evonne Marzouk

The Prophetess by Evonne Marzouk – 320 pages

ARC courtesy the author in exchange for an honest review

Book Blurb:

The Prophetess tells a modern story about Rachel, an American teenage girl called to join a secret community of Jewish prophets. The story weaves Jewish tradition, mysticism, modern Jewish American life, and discovery of Israel into a coming-of-age story of a girl discovering her power and purpose in life. The book is targeted at young adults but is also very appropriate for all ages. 

My Review: 3.5 stars

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The Prophetess is an engaging young adult story that embraces mysticism, religion and faith through Rachel, the young protagonist in the book.

Upon the death of her beloved grandfather with whom she was extremely close, she starts to have visions, which sometimes cause her shimmer or often faint.

As time goes by, an older man called Yonatan, approaches Rachel and she feels a strong connection to him. He becomes her mentor and helps her understand these visions and what they mean. No one knows about Yonatan. Her parents think she’s anywhere but with an older man at the temple and her friends think she’s at temple to be with a religious boy. No one but Yonatan knows what’s going on with her. Through Yonatan’s guidance, she gleans that these visions are flashbacks of a story from long ago.

In the book, there is much talk about faith and religion and what it really means to be an Orthodox Jew. There is no preaching one way or another; it’s just about understanding yourself and choosing your own path. The overall messages were good and the writing well done, however I felt the footnotes on the bottom of the pages were distracting. I read many books with characters that speak different languages. Usually, the terms can be figured out by context clues or an index of them can be found in the back.

I think this is a great book for the YA audience or any person struggling with faith (of any religion). I hope that this ends up in the library of Jewish congregations.