Conflicted opinion on this one. On one hand I appreciated the feminist narrative, but it did feel a touch too modern. I didn’t find myself particular attached to the character.

Some of this book was very poetic, and the opening was incredibly strong, but unfortunately it didn't pull me in and I felt like a lot of it dragged. DNF at about halfway through.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to stumble across a book that changes our lives forever. Lilith is one of those stories and I am so glad that I found it, that she found me. I have been a practicing Witch for quite some time, but as I was raised within the Methodist church, I was always yearning for "our version" of the bible. Well, I think I finally found it. This is the ultimate, most beautiful re-telling of Lilith, Creation, Eden... I could go on. I felt as if I was reclaiming being a woman the entirety of reading this novel. All of the details aligned so perfectly - especially reading the amazing notes at the end. I now want to re-read it after reading those! This story is a battle cry to all women and I insist, INSIST you read it. Reclaim what we were refused so long ago! The author takes on a divine-like personality towards the end of the novel; almost as if they are Lilith, passing along the stories of the Great Mother and all of those who came after her. This novel gives women the origin story they deserve, the one they were cheated of. I can't begin to explain the peace that this novel put my soul to; wow. Wow, wow! I have so many words yet I am also incredibly speechless. This will be a novel I have a physical copy of (if not multiple) that is lined with highlighted passages and notated post-its. I think you'll find yourself feeling the same way once you sink your teeth into this story and find divine truth. How I'm going to wait until October for a physical copy, I don't know (LOL!), but I cannot wait to have this as a prized posession on my bookshelf. Thank you so, so much to Nikki Marmery for your time and dedication; I'm sure blood, sweat, and tears also went into this. I appreciate each and every one of them! To have this amount of information in one place is reminicent of Maryam's texts that she was so worried about preserving and passing on; it will make you feel so incredibly powerful, and for that I must thank the author again. Thank you to Alcove Press for providing me the opportunity to read an eARC of this title, as well as a giant thank you to NetGalley for the same. This title has changed my life - THANK YOU!

Lilith is the first woman, destined to be mother of all. For her, knowledge and wisdom are gifts bestowed on her from the Great Mother. For those who would have her quiet, lovely, subservient, these are the things they wish to take from her. Her destiny appears to come to a swift end when she refuses to act as Adam’s serf and give him dominion over her. She is cast from the Garden of Eden by a new and vengeful God.

While there were some slow parts, I truly enjoyed this historical fiction account of the first woman. Not only do we hear Lilith’s story, but also the account of Samael, Eve, Norea (wife of Noah), Jezebel, Maryam (of Magdala), and more. The best part was, hands down, Lilith and Maryam. I kept wondering if Maryam (better known to us as Mary…guess which one) was end game each time Lilith would be searching for her prophet, The inclusion of Thunder, Perfect Mind was inspired. The parallel of Lilith and Maryam having their own road to Damascus moment was especially poignant portion of the narrative.

Ultimately this isn’t just the story of Lilith. It’s the story of women throughout biblical times who have been labeled as demonic, whores, or purposefully unnamed and left out completely. It’s the story of finding a woman’s place in history and continuously fighting to be known as the equals, not “made of”, of men.

HIGHLIGHTS
~scary angels are dickhead jocks
~God is a brat
~the hero women have waited 6000 years for is an idiot

Where the hell do I start.

I can see what Marmery tried to do here, and why some other readers are going to feel so EmpoweredTM by this book, but honestly? It’s a trainwreck. The internal logic is whatever Marmery wants it to be at any given moment, rather than something that actually, you know, makes sense and holds the story together. Lilith breaks its own rules constantly, culminating in the absolutely ridiculous ending, which only works if you let none of your braincells anywhere near it. And the entire book is one loud, preachy lecture on the kind of bioessentialist Woman PowerTM nonsense I thought we were done with in the 80s.

Lilith is the First Woman, created at the same time as Adam in the garden of Eden. All is well until Adam starts becoming obsessed with power and control, inventing money and weaponry and The Patriarchy, basically. Just in case we didn’t get the message that he’s a terrible person, he also rapes her – but it’s fine, because Lilith shrugs it off like it was nothing, insulted but otherwise unaffected. The reader belatedly discovers that Yahweh is not the One God at all, because He has a wife and partner, Asherah; it is Asherah who created Adam and Lilith (and presumably everything else in Eden), because, and I quote,

<Naming is to man what birthing is to woman.>

Yahweh only named things, you see, which is meaningless, because

<naming holds no power.>

Asherah has bestowed upon Lilith the Secret, which makes Lilith capital-w Wise. This Wisdom is more or less summed up as ‘man and woman are equal, and have no dominion over the earth, because they are a part of it.’ But Asherah is missing, and the book really gets moving when Lilith abandons Eden to go look for Her. Although she doesn’t find Asherah, she does discover that she and Adam are far from the only humans in the world; later, she discovers that Yahweh and Asherah are far from the only gods to exist, too.

(This is important.)

Yahweh, here, is characterised as the ultimate Old White Cis Dude, insisting that He is the only one with power, the only god, that everything male is good and everything female is, at best, disgusting. He is petulant, spoiled, and bullying, a figure who would be pathetic if He didn’t have the power to enforce His horrible views on the world. He is a petty child next to the infinite wisdom and grace of Asherah.

I find this incredibly lazy writing. There is absolutely no nuance here, and what’s weirder and worse is that this is very clearly an ex-Christian take on God. I sympathise, because yeah, this is pretty much the impression of God I was left with too after I got far the fuck away from my Catholic upbringing – but Lilith isn’t a Christian figure. Lilith comes from Jewish folklore, and I’m not at all saying there is no dodgy patriarchal bs in Judaism – but there is an enormous difference between the Christian and Jewish views and approaches to God. I feel like the least you could do, in telling Lilith’s story, is respecting the culture and faith she comes from.

If that doesn’t bother you, nevermind, there are plenty more things this book does badly. The writing itself, for example, can’t decide what it wants to be; it swings wildly from fancily archaic to dissonantly modern (Adam describes the Wisdom as ‘mumbo-jumbo’), with quick dips into the bizarrely juvenile (Lilith calls the angel Semangelof ‘the scariest of the three [angels]’ – ‘scariest’, as if she’s a child rather than a grown adult). Later, disappointed that she can’t find Asherah, Lilith literally zones out for a thousand years sitting in one spot, until another character comes along to info-dump everything that’s happened while she wasn’t paying attention. She immediately takes an enemy’s word for it that her long-lost companion could have returned to her any time he wanted, and gets mad about it, despite having every reason not to trust the person who told her this. While on the hunt for a woman with a specific birthmark, centuries later, it takes her sixteen years – of sleeping beside her, bathing her, dressing her, etc – to notice that the woman she’s hung her hopes on does not have this birthmark. And when she does find her prophet, she accepts that this woman ‘has to die’ despite no one providing any reason why this death has to happen. It’s ‘just because’.

‘The hero women have waited 6000 years for’? Hi, you made her an idiot.

(She’s also shallow. Her first thought upon meeting Eve? Is that Eve is ugly – so not-pretty that she doesn’t even have a reflection.

<So unremarkable was she, even the waters failed to mark her presence.>

Wow. Great sisterhood messaging there. Really.)

Or how about the worldbuilding? Marmery is, at first, superficially clever with this; I liked that there were other humans outside of Eden, worshipping other gods who were just as real as Yahweh and Asherah. I approved of the reveal that Asherah is and was known by other names in other places, before and after Eden. Marmery finds ways to give a nod to Asmodeus and Naamah – demonic figures often connected to Lilith in the folklore – and to explain what exactly Lilith is doing visiting babies in the middle of the night (also from the folklore).

But.

One of the biggest driving forces of the book is the existence (and attempted destruction) of the Underworld – later known as Sheol – which is a dark, terrible place. When we first encounter it, it’s ruled by Ereshkigal, the Sumerian queen of the dead. Cool. But as faith in Asherah wanes, the dead stop coming to this particular underworld. (Where else they might be going, if anywhere, is never explained.) They only start coming again when Lilith spreads the word of her. Sheol is clearly tied to faith in Asherah (or some form of her); only souls who know of Asherah end up there.

Except, no: later, we learn everyone ends up in Sheol. Where Ereshkigal is eventually replaced by Satan.

What??? How are all the souls of all the others who worship other gods ending up in Sheol? Speaking of, since Yahweh isn’t the only god, where are the rest of them? What are they doing? Do they have Wisdom of their own? Could Lilith appeal to them for help?

Marmery tried to be inclusive by saying other gods exist – but then forgets about them completely, breaking her own worldbuilding in the process. After we learn of their existence, they’re never brought up again; aside from a brief glimpse of Ereshkigal, we never see them, which makes absolutely no sense in context.

Then there’s the ending.

The magic-wand solution to all of humanity’s problems turns out to be for Lilith and her consort Samael to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life – because through them, the fruit’s effects will pass to all of humanity! Because they are the Mother and Father of humanity too, just as much as Adam and Eve were!

…Except they’re not. Not even close. They do have human descendants, it’s true, but those descendants are localised to the Middle East. Lilith discovered right at the very beginning that she and Adam weren’t the first humans at all; there were whole civilisations existing outside of Eden! Whose descendants therefore have no connection to Lilith or Adam! However you spin it, the vast majority of humanity does not come from Lilith; for her and Samael to eat the fruit would only affect some of humanity, and not even most of it, at that.

THIS MAKES NO SENSE. It’s the most hand-wavey nonsense I’ve ever seen. Frankly, it’s insulting to the reader, that we’re expected to buy this drivel.

And I haven’t even touched on the creepy gross bioessentialism yet.

Women Create, you see. Because pregnancy and childbirth! Women are connected to the Earth, are the keepers of the Wisdom, it’s wrong for women to be subjugated not because, you know, subjugation is inherently evil, but because women are Special.

<A woman’s body tethers her to this earth. We are wedded to this life, to its pleasures and its sorrows. Our bodies cycle like the seasons, we bleed with the moon. We yield children, as the earth yields its fruits.>

I am not going to write an essay on how womanhood is not tied to your ability to be pregnant or give birth, how you don’t have to ‘bleed with the moon’ to be a girl and how not everyone who does is a woman anyway. I don’t have the spoons to have this argument again, especially when I know how much this new agey Women PowerTM stuff appeals to so many cis women. I’ve already read the early reviews calling Lilith empowering and validating, with no thought to how this kind of philosophy is actively transphobic, ignores the existence of nonbinary people like myself, forces women who don’t feel this way about their femininity outside of the group, and shoves men into a tiny little cage. Yes, the patriarchy is awful and always has been. Telling men they can’t create won’t fix it, and the definitely-not-intersectional ‘feminist’ utopia you’re dreaming of has electric fences around it to keep me out.

<with all female power banished, it was a place of subjection and tyranny. Of perpetual stasis, not regeneration. Of Shalts and Shalt Nots issued by male authority. A place of masculine hierarchy, domination, and progress, unbalanced by the female urge to nurture, sustain, and renew.>

(Also? One throwaway line about how men aren’t born bad doesn’t negate you writing every male character – except the one related to you and the one who is a literal angel – as a misogynistic bigot or a spineless weakling. Finishing up with a neat little adage about how only when the two halves come together will everything be perfect rings pretty damn hollow when the entire book preceding it makes out that male ‘half’ to be awful without exception. Talking about halves at all is bioessentialist and transphobic! THERE’S MORE TO HUMANITY THAN MEN AND WOMEN. It’s 2023, why are we still having to have this conversation?)

Ultimately, this book is the story of Lilith languishing through history, looking to restore women’s rights. Which could have been, should have been, a really excellent story. But instead of letting Lilith do it herself, Marmery arbitrarily decides that Lilith needs a human prophet to do it, and sends her on a quest through time to find that prophet, instead. Why? The whole point of the modern, feminist take on Lilith is that she is independent and powerful in her own right; why can’t she spread the word of Asherah herself? ‘Because.’ That’s all the reason we get.

The whole premise of the book makes no sense; Lilith should have been the star, and she isn’t. She spends what should have been her story looking for others to raise them up. But even if she were the star, she’s a fairly one-dimensional character here, especially with the bouts of outrageous stupidity that hit her whenever Marmery requires it For Plot. The overlying (I’m not calling it underlying when there’s nothing the least bit subtle about it) message of this book is the kind of bioessentialist ‘feminism’ I thought we were done with decades ago, where women are magical because childbirth and the only good kind of men are the ones who worship them. It’s simplistic and it’s incorrect and it’s boring.

This is not my Lilith, and this book isn’t worthy of her.

Or of you, either. Skip this one and read something better instead – it’s not as if that bar is set especially high.

A sweeping, epic reimagining of the Biblical myth of Lilith, Adam's first wife who was said to have been cast out of Eden for refusing to be subservient to him. I enjoyed Nikki Marmery's perspective on Lilith as a woman and as a religious and cultural icon, casting her quest to save Eve from Adam as merely one step of a larger movement to rescue all women, all across history, from suppression and subjugation. The writing style was accomplished, but inconsistent; I didn't mind that it read like the Bible, but I did mind having to picture Adam saying things like "No way". And there were moments when I think the grandness of the story's scope caused some of the finer details to lose their emotional weight, which might be why I wasn't as wowed by the execution of the concept as I hoped to be. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed it.

Apologies to the author and publishers but I couldn’t finish this book. I had this farcical feeling throughout the half of the book I did read. Not at all what I expected

This book explored the character of Lilith, the first woman Adam's equal, that was expelled from the Garden of Eden. The book follows Lilith from her initial exile into present day; sharing stories various biblical figures and events. .I found this book to be very interesting. Not an easy read but an engaging retelling of the foundational myths of Christianity and much of modern society.

Lilith A Novel by Nikki Marmery

336 Pages
Publisher: Alcove Press
Release Date: October 17, 2023

Fiction (Adult), General Fiction (Adult), Biblical Fiction (Adult)

This is another retelling of the Lilith story. It is not much different than other fictional stories. As Lilith is my Goddess, I have read a lot of material about Her. This one is written from a more biblical perspective in the third person point of view. From the book description, I expected more.

DNFing at 3% -- just not for me. I hope this book finds its audience, and I'll possibly give it another try in the future, but it's not working for me at all at the moment.

A well-researched novel that nonetheless fell short for me. It leans heavily into a Biblical writing style, which while an interesting an impressive stylistic detail, made the novel dense and slow to get through. As a lapsed and largely cultural Jew I also feel like a lot of of the intricate biblical references flew over my head, probably not helped by the fact that it picks a solidly Christian approach to much Judeo-Christian lore. The dialogue also feels at odds with the rest of the writing - too modern in contrast with the heavy descriptive prose.

I liked the author's writing style and enjoyed the imagery used.

I can imagine 'Lilith' being a hit for those who enjoy the Greek story retellings. While this book wasn't my style, I can recognize that it was well done.

This book was beautiful and haunting in the best ways. I will be sure to recommend it when it releases on October 17th. The cover art is gorgeous and the writing matches!

I have never supported Lilith more than I do now!!! Screw Adam and Eve! This woman has gone to hell and back and has to sit by and watch God ruin her life.

The concept of Lilith finding Eve and Asherah (God's Wife) to restore the balance in the universe (ultimately that women are meant to be in power not men) is so thought provoking and inspiring. This woman is shrouded in hate in our history and scripture and this novel gives so much light to her.

I HIGHLY encourage you to read this and rethink what men have written and told us for thousands of years. You might start to believe that they were the bad ones the whole time.

DNFing 7% in. I know that this is not very far into the book. But I really don't enjoy how it was written. I didn't expect it to actually sound like the bible. The writing is very "I did this and then I did this. I felt like this." To me it is just a bit dull.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I struggle with deciding what to rate this book because I really loved it but I also found parts of it a little slow and tedious to get through. It sparked a lot of conversation with my coworkers at work because of things I had read; not just from this book, but from the research that it inspired me to do. Overall, I think I’m going to give this a four-star on Goodreads but it’ll actually be about a 3.75. And that is literally only because there were some slower parts that I struggle to get through. But that also has I think I want to do with my Personal religious trauma. I love the overall message of this book, but I am sure that this book will get a lot of backlash from the religious community. I love that the story includes the story of Mary Magdalene and Jezebel. This book just really inspired a lot of curiosity about what really happened during those times. This is a fictionalized book, but as we know, history is written by the victors in this case men. It makes me wonder if this is a more accurate portrayal of Jezebel, Mary Magdalene etc. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of written historical fact about women in general, but especially from this time period. So this fictionalized account may be the closest we can get to these women’s stories or maybe the truth is somewhere between this accounting and what is written in the Bible/Quran/Torah etc. The author did a great job with research, especially considering what little there was to work with.

I really love these type of stories, re-imagined familiar tales written in a "how it really went" kind of way. This one, too, initially grabbed me, but ultimately dragged on for too long. I had to throw in the towel at 65%

Before Eve, there was Lilith....

The mythology/folklore lover in me adored this novel. It's a variation on the theme of Madeline Miller's Circe, from the perspective of Lilith and spanning all the way to present day. It also reminded me of Mists of Avalon at times -- a feminist epic and one of my favorite guilty pleasure novels. I wanted this to be longer (which is rarely the case!) Some of the major historical moments she touches on are so glossed over - barely blips. Bonus points for a super robust notes section! The academic in me was geeking out.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

This is a wonderful story of Lilith. How she not only escaped the hands of Adam, but was a fear e and curious woman. I loved this retelling of her story. I was completely immersed into this storyline, I read it in one sitting.

Lilith takes a long windy journey through the traditional biblical stories.

From her relationship to Adam to visiting Noah’s Ark and more, Lilith presents a different perspective on classic stories.

It took me a really long time to finish this book due to the long, windy nature of the writing.

If you’re looking for an alternative take on bible stories, this might be interesting for you.

ARC kindly provided via NetGalley