The Hanukkah Hook-Up

Christmas romance is flooding the shelves this time of year, including every variation from small town romance to some very salacious Santa’s, but I’m happy to report that Hanukkah romance is also thriving and creating its own niche in both trad and self pub. A prime example is the Matzo Ballers series, about a set of of friends who gather together every Hanukkah on a Manhattan cruise boat called the Matzoh Baller. The first two books of the series have released in time for Hanukkah and feature the parallel adventures of two of the eight friends.

You can read these books in either order, they don’t contain spoilers, but I started with Jessica Topper’s The Hanukkah Hook-Up because I received it first. On page one, we meet a very stylish but very bogged-down-at-work Nora, who is forced to miss the yearly Matzo Baller cruise in order to greet the team from the Midwest that is planning to buy out her company. Instead of partying it up on the boat with her friends and a who’s who of NY Jewry she’s stuck drinking eggnog and dodging mistletoe at the company “holiday” party which is largely Christmas themed. 

Nora is thrown together with the only other Jew present, Alex Beckman, by her obnoxious boss who seems to think it is hilarious there are two Jews at the party. When the aforementioned heinous boss cancels the expected holiday bonuses, Nora decides that enough is enough and flees the party for the boat, taking Alex with her. The two are obviously attracted to each other and Nora proposes a Hanukkah hook up in which they do not discuss work. Turns out this arrangement won’t work though, because new comer Alex is actually the head of the buy out team and everything in the office is not exactly kosher, which is why Norah has been so stressed about work lately. 

The office shenanigans are actually solved relatively simply, the book is only 172 pages after all, but my favorite part of the book wasn’t the drama. It was the rapid fire banter and Jewish humor. Never have I felt so fully immersed in Jewish jokes and puns. This book prioritizes the a Jewish gaze and it shows. The writer does not pause every few sentences to explain for the wider audience. Instead she revels in the niche market.

The Hanukkah Hook-Up is an adult romance and the characters are physically intimate several times, but there’s always a fade to black and nothing is explicit on the page. I’d call it medium heat. 

From the chapter, when Nora talks about her Hanukkah blue dress clashing with all the red and green on display at the office party, one gets the sense that this is a book written for Jews by Jews. There is enough here in context clues for a person who is not Jewish to understand what is happening, but the book does not beleaguer the point or write to the lowest common denominator. The inside jokes are fast and furious and I smiled so many times. Because this was a book written for me, just in time for my holiday, and I cherish it as such. 

Note: BookishlyJewish received a free e copy of this book from the author after she filled out our Suggest A Book form

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