Read All The Books Aaaaaah! discussion

All I know about this book is that someone compared it to the Stepford Wives, and it involves an evil homeowner's association.

Lots of mysteries so far, like the fact that Sophia's husband built the house and all of the furniture in it, yet he made everything so huge that Sophia has difficulty climbing the stairs and has to use piles of pillows to sit at her own vanity table. Or is Sophia actually a child?

Then there are shades of Bluebeard, with the cellar that she's forbidden to enter, and a strange lock of hair.

And the other ladies at the tea party keep using the word "hunt" in regard to men's interest in them.

So I have a vague idea where this might be going, but I can't tell for sure.

Another clue, it seems, is that Sophia has recently been introduced to a strange man, a music teacher named Mr Semengelof, who has a strange interest in her well-being. Outside of this book, Semengelof is the name of one of the three guardian angels who watch over newborns and protect them from the lilim. Another implication that Sophia is a child?

Also, all of the residents of this place have animal last names, like Mrs Lyon, Mrs Mynk, Mrs Fische, etc. If all of the names are meaningful, then Sophia should be particularly wise, since her name means wisdom.

There is in fact a mention of wisdom, and Sophia manages to figure out some things that others could not, so maybe it was indeed meaningful.

After the Semengelof thing, the Old Testament references started piling up thicker and thicker until they were the whole thing.

Okay, it wasn't bad, but I didn't like the ending, and some things didn't quite map onto their source material. Considering the direction it all went and the material it was drawing on, I would have expected Sophia to have been named after the gnostic Sophia -- but she was the mother of the demiurge, several steps above humans, and never had anything to do with humans aside from investing them all with a portion of the divine spark. So I guess the choice of her name must have been simply its meaning of "wisdom" and not a reference to the gnostic entity.

Still, this is very much a retelling, just not what I expected or wanted. Again, not bad, but not satisfactory.