
Sisters of Fortune
Esther Chehebar
July 22, 2025 Random House
320 pages
A few times a year there will be a book that is literally everywhere. I cannot escape its presence, even if I stay off social media. In the case of Esther Chehebar’s debut novel, Sisters of Fortune, I couldn’t even go to the beach this summer without spotting it! (To be fair, she had her launch in the beach club. I should’ve expected it). In this particular case, Sisters Of Fortune, is also a book I really wanted to see succeed, because it is the first traditionally published book set in the contemporary Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn (for some historical fiction see our review of Corie Adjmi’s The Marriage Box). So I was delighted to see that pink cover out and about and on my socials. But it also meant that I had to wait forever for my library hold to come in and even then I could only access it via e-book.
Did Sisters of Fortune live up to all the hype and expectations? Yes and no. The book does an excellent job of representing the Syrian Jewish community. Its strongest paragraphs appear when Chehebar ponders the push and pull of the community – how it can provide everything and be a tremendous source of support and comfort, while simultaneously stifling personal expression and setting unrealistic financial and beauty expectations. She captures the tension between immigrant grandparents, who are frankly happy to simply have escaped persecution, and their grandchildren who reflect their new homeland by wanting more out of life.
It was in the plot where I wanted just a little bit more to satisfy my admittedly sky high expectations. The novel follows three sisters – Nina, Fortune, and Lucy – who are all on the uber competitive community marriage market. (Side bar: am I the only person wondering why Fortune is named after the paternal grandmother when the book itself states that this honor usually goes to the firstborn girl and therefore should have been given to Nina?) When the book opens Nina is a rebellious “older single” who wants to escape the community that has written her off us no longer worthy since she is still single well into her twenties, while Fortune is engaged and participating in a lot of pre-wedding hoopla. Except Fortune doesn’t appear to be having all that much fun despite being the bride. That honor goes to her little sister Lucy, who is still in high school but is universally acknowledged to be the beauty of the family and is dating a very eligible (although significantly older) man, making her the envy of all her teenage friends and the community at large.
There is the potential for a lot of tension and character growth for the sisters. They each have a unique voice and personality. Unfortunately, none of their stories hit perfectly for me. Fortune has a surprising arc, but the moments of her deepest personal reflection and growth appear to have been left on the cutting room floor in an unexpected time lapse in the last third of the book. Nina’s story was almost perfect, I simply would have liked to have seen her get more page time to explore her reconciliation with the community outside of her dating prospects. Meanwhile, Lucy’s is the story that I’m guessing upsets most readers, because it involves an age gap romance. I’m not actually opposed to age gap romances myself. However, this particular story involves a high schooler in an intimate relationship with a thirty year old, and the community is depicted as practically pushing her into his arms since he’s rich. It’s consensual, but still an ethically complex situation that could have been the set up for a critical look at a situation that is actually not that uncommon in many communities around the world. Instead, the broader societal implications are largely unexplored. Chehebar shows the relationship beginning to fray, most tellingly in Lucy’s discomfort any time she has to leave the community, but in the end further discussion is curtailed in order to name drop a large list of luxury goods that are keeping Lucy happy. I don’t mind a happy ending – I prefer them! – but I’d love a little more depth to the journey that takes us there.
Aside from the age gap relationship, I would also point out for my readers who have sensitivity to disordered eating and body image, that this book does contain graphic descriptions of both. If you can name an eating disorder, or other body distortion, someone in this book has it and everyone around her generally thinks it’s a good thing because it improves her marriage prospects. I actually thought this was very realistic, and one of the few topics that Chehebar really did not shy away from, but I know it’s a hard no for some readers as it causes them to relapse on their own condition etc. If that’s you – go ahead and skip this book.
Sisters of Fortune is ambitious and it carries the wight of an entire community on its back. It mostly manages to meet those goals, but I got the sense that it is hard to be publicly critical of a community that one still lives in. Read this book for the representation, for the Syrian culture and food, and the depiction of the dynamics of sisterhood – how women can both support and compete with each other. And yes, it does make an excellent beach read.
Spot on.