My Review of Esther Royal Beauty by Angela Hunt

I had the opportunity to do a review of Esther Royal Beauty. I was super excited about this particular book because I know this story. I took a bible course on The Book Of Esther, I watched a netflix story about it and I read the bible. So to my delight I was ready to dive into this book. The story of Esther in my opinion is about a king who's wife embarrassed him when she did not come to his side on his command, so he needed a replacement wife. All the finest virgins where gathered to see who was fitting to be queen. Esther a woman who is a orphan and was raised by her cousin & his wife, has the opportunity to win the kings heart. Esther is a god fearing jewish woman that has strong principals and all the good stuff. ( To sum it up)

 However, she is in a struggle to hide her ethnicity,  protect her people, or figure how to change the heart of the king. Well, I won't go further into detail about that you can research that on your own. Angela Hunt version of Esther was a bit different. I guess a lot of spice must be added to biblical stories to make them more appealing to the masses. But, I don't think you should over do it. There were a few twist and turns that lost me. The story was not in line with what my expectation of the story should have been. But that is okay, as long as it is interesting.

 There were a few things that made me feel uneasy. For example, The Eunuch which were from Abyssinia were in other words, black.   Abyssinia is modern day North Ethiopia and Eritrea so basically the story implies this is where the "euncuch/slave boys" come from.   The eunuch so loyally loved being a slave to the king in this story. Now lets put this in perspective... the king had these young men stolen from their homeland as children, he castrated them before the onset of puberty, and for some reason they feel a sense of loyalty and love for him?? No way! This concept is too reminiscent of African American enslaved men, known as "house negroes" who were castrated  because of the fear that they would in anyway be sexually tempted by the women of the house. This story seemed to romanticize this concept, as if any man should be happy to live a life where he knows that he will never have a family and will always be a servant. The eunuch is so happy with his inferior position that he would put his life on the line for the man who caused his lament. The Eunuch was so loyal that when he overheard the plot against the king that he is the first to prevent it.

My investigative spirit lead me to reevaluate the bible to see if these young African men were actually the eunuch i this particular story.  I could not find any evidence that they were.   The story does say that there was a Eunuch named Hegai, who was in charge of the Harem.  His job was to make sure the ladies were prepared for the King, freshly perfumed and beautified.  But, his racial or ethnic background was never implied.    I don't quite understand the need for him to be African.  Don't get me wrong the bible does mention a Ethiopian eunuch in Isaiah 53:7 , but that has nothing to do with the story of Esther.

But, aside from that there were some details about the Kings first wife that were deeply exaggerated.  The story implies that she is a wildly jealous woman, and a bit mischievous.  But seriously, the story does not imply that the King is a prize either.  So in my opinion the book was okay.  It was not a book that was too dry to read,  it served its purpose ... I wanted to research a little after reading this book and that is a good thing.   Its always a good thing when a book gets you going after your read it. You can purchase the book by clicking on the pretty book below!