Qumran - Eliette Abécassis

Qumran is a site near the Dead Sea that apparently, centuries ago, was a community - perhaps for the Essenes, a Jewish sect.  And it's also the site where the Dead Sea scrolls were found.  Who knew?  I certainly didn't before picking up this book.

I've had this book for a long time - maybe about 8 or 9 years.  A coworker had given it to me after he was done reading it.  It's a fictional story of some of the Dead Sea scrolls, in particular one that was stolen a few decades ago.  In this book, a very Orthodox Jewish man in his early 20's is convinced to join his agnostic father on a quest to find this stolen scroll - a quest that will prove to be dangerous and life-altering.

Or so I assume.  I don't know how the quest ended up affecting them.  I reallllly tried to get into this book and to love it.  It has all the ingredients of a story that will pull me in!  But I couldn't do it.  I read about 25% of the book and finally realized that I just needed to give up, that it wasn't for me.  It wasn't a fast paced book like you might think.  I was over 100 pages in before they started their globetrotting.  And I think that that was part of the problem for me, why I struggled with it, because it was a slower pace than I was wanting.

So I've given up.  After about 120 pages I threw in the towel and offered my surrender.  I hope that this book will find its way to the right person who will be able to appreciate it for all it has to offer.