Author: H.B. Moore
Alma is historical fiction; the story of, well, Alma from the Book of Mormon. So for many readers, Alma is a familiar story, just fleshed-out a lot more than we get in the five or six chapters from the Book of Mormon from which it is drawn. As a historical novel, it's the sequel to Moore's Abinadi, published in 2008. It's along the same lines as Orson Scott Card's books Rachel and Sarah, or Anita Diamant's The Red Tent.
I didn't expect to like Alma (although I'm not really sure why, since I liked the Card and Diamant books). I think I thought it was going to be too similar to Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites (which, incidentally, I also liked) but I have to grudgingly admit that I did like the book quite a bit. I was interested in the story, and I think Moore did a good job of turning names from a book of scripture into believable characters. I particularly liked the way that the story was told from the perspective of the women of the community, since women are so glaringly absent from much of the Book of Mormon. Yeah, she did go a little heavy on telling us how attractive everyone was (apparently all Nephites are beautiful, I guess, unless they got too close to a fire as a child), but I could excuse that because the story drew me in. Also, this is one of three sequels that I've read so far, and of the three, I felt least lost reading Alma, which I think is another plus.
1 comment:
Heather was in my ward years ago. I only discovered she wrote books when I saw her nominated for a Whitney award last year and was checking things out.
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