Bookishly Jewish

Naming a character is a tricky piece of work. Sometimes the name magically reveals itself to me along with the character. Like most magic, this is rare. The rest of the time, I spend days flipping between different names, calling the character INSERT NAME in the manuscript, or pointing randomly to a phone book. In one memorable scenario, I asked to use a name from my critique partner’s childhood imagination. She was kind of shocked when this choice survived the drafting, editing, and submitting process, but I had grown rather attached to the name at that point (probably because it reminded me of her and she is awesome). In Joyful Song, written by Lesléa Newman and illustrated by Susan Gal, the main character faces a similar conundrum. Only INSERT NAME isn’t really an option, because little Zachary is on his way to the Synagogue with his two mothers to name his baby sister.

Turns out, the name has already been chosen, but as is tradition in many Jewish communities, it is not be used until it is officially bestowed before the congregation and the Torah in Synagogue. This leads to some hilarity as the family meets various community members along the way who inquire after the baby. To prevent Zachary from accidentally spilling the beans, his mothers interrupt him with cute nicknames for the baby. The neighbors are invited to join the ceremony, forming a bit of a procession, and on the way back home there is a fun repetition as they are dropped off in reverse order.

I especially enjoyed the melding of old tradition with new concepts found in the book. Although specific naming traditions vary across communities, many do have the custom not to use the name until it is officially bestowed in Synagogue. Indeed, there is some lore that indicates the giving of a name is the last vestige of prophecy left to us after the destruction of the temple. In naming a child, you partially determine or foretell their future. God speaks through the namer.

The choice to make the baby in the book assigned female at birth allows Newman to showcase some newer aspects of Jewish tradition. The naming of those assigned male at birth has always been a bit of a hoopla, because it occurs at the circumcision which is a large ritual followed by a feast. Girls, on the other hand, were named in front of the Torah ark on the days it was routinely taken out for the standard weekly readings. There were some special songs, I especially enjoy the sephardic one that references the Yonah – the dove, but it was not generally associated with a large communal gathering or party. It was a regular day of services at Synagogue. Each child has always been viewed as a gift, but these days people want to show that by also having a large celebration for a baby girl – just as large as her brother would have gotten. That celebration has taken different forms in different communities, with the baby girl naming ceremony becoming more and more popular.

Also notable are the guests at this event. Although the book does not specify, it can be inferred that many of the neighbors that inquire after the baby and come for the naming ceremony are not Jewish. Or at the very least, they are not from the same congregation and therefore not familiar with the ceremony and custom not to use the baby’s name until it is officially given. This is interesting on two levels – the first being that the family feels comfortable and friendly towards these people to the point where they invite them along. The second being that the neighbors actually accept that invitation and agree that the child is a blessing. This may seem fairly routine and normal, but it was not so long ago that every Jewish baby was thought of as a scourge upon the Earth by their non-Jewish neighbors, a thing to be destroyed and loathed, not a living, breathing, manifestation of joy. The model of community openness and mutual respect and understanding displayed here means so much to me right now, and I hope the spirit in which it was written can survive.

I don’t review picture books that often, but this year to accommodate reader feedback we are making a huge push to increase offerings across all genres on the website (my apologies to the horror fans, I struggle the most with that one). It appears I am not as much of a novice as I thought though, because the moment Joyful Song hit my hands I immediately recognized the illustrations. They were so full of vibrancy, diversity, and just this feeling of what modern Judaism encapsulates for me that I had to look up the illustrator and see if I was correct. Indeed I was! Susan Gal has also illustrated my personal favorite picture book, (also written by Newman! what a dream team!), Here is the World, which for a long time was one of the few picture books up on BookishlyJewish because of how moved I was by those illustrations. It filled me with such a great sense of joy to encounter her illustrations again.

Joyful Song is a sweet story, not just for those welcoming a new child into their home, but for anyone looking to see a community practice equality and openness. It is a book of optimism, and isn’t that the perfect feeling with which each new child should be welcomed? I won’t ruin the story by revealing the name, but let’s just say whoever chose it did an excellent job. No scouring through a phone book needed.

BookishlyJewish received an arc of this book from the publisher after they filled out our Suggest a Book Form.

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The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden is one of the most comprehensive collections of Jewish food from across various Jewish cultures – Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi etc. Yet I confess, I’ve never tried a single recipe from it. For me, Claudia Roden is not just a provider of recipes, although many are detailed in the book, she is a curator of memories. Specifically, the cultural memory of a people in diaspora who preserve their traditions and history through food. I use this book to learn about how the various lands we have lived on and the persecutions we have suffered inform our tables. Not necessarily to cook.

The Book of Jewish food is divided into two sections, one covering Ashkenazi food and one covering everything that isn’t Ashkenazi. That is obviously a hard thing to put a label on and also a much longer chapter. There are really evocative photos and postcards spread throughout, and in addition to thorough introductory chapters, side bars give information on specific foods and customs. 

Rodin herself acknowledges that it is impossible to try every recipe, to list all the variations, and so instead she chooses to focus on the ones that taste best to her. She most definitely likes sour cream more than I do (I did not previously think this was possible) and many of these dishes are prepared differently than I make them, but I didn’t mind. The point for me was the history. As Roden notes, while our communities spread out over recent years they’ve also mingled more, and current recipes have begun to cross cultures. I put tamarind paste in my holoptches. In the past that would have been a sacrilege but I think Roden would approve. 

The Ashkenazi chapter did occasionally feel slightly reductive to me, but I think this is because Roden’s background, and palette, were formed on an Egyptian and Syrian background. I can forgive her for not realizing how actually vastly different certain noodle kugels are. Plus, for all I know a person with a Sephardic background may have similar feelings about the chapters relevant to their cooking. It’s extraordinarily difficult to condense this many years of history into a recipe. Either way, I found myself engaged in the reading, even quoting fun facts to whoever happened to be around me at the time. 

If I did try one of the recipes included it would probably be teigelach because I’ve always wanted to try those but nobody I know makes them. I imagine things might take a little practice. Roden’s recipes are somewhat sparse – leaving room for those around you to tell you how they in particular did such and such back in the old country. So whatever version I make will be my version, reflective of this new country. Maybe in a few hundred years someone will write a book about it. Let’s hope it is just as thoughtful and thorough as the Book of Jewish Food. 

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I have one special rolling pin that nobody besides for me is allowed to touch. When it goes missing, there is a mass panic and I cannot function. It’s a wooden french pin that works really wonderfully for rolling out everything from pie crust to hamentasch dough, but that’s not the reason it is so special to me. I love that pin because my grandmother taught me how to use it and every time I do, she is with me again. Carine Goren captures that nostalgia in her book Traditional Jewish Baking: Retro Recipes Your Grandma Would Make…If she Had a Mixer.

My own grandmother most definitely did not make most of the recipes in this book. For certain she was not using jello and she was not a big cheesecake fan either. Who had that back in Poland or Russia? She was more of a compote person. However, I distinctly recall the homemade checkerboard cake on the front cover of Traditional Jewish Baking appearing a few times in my childhood. It’s unclear who made it – turns out most of the women in my family in prior generations were not huge fans of spending time in the kitchen. A fact you’d never know from the way they took care to have the littles bake with them and the joy they took in feeding us.

Maybe that’s the point. They wanted to instill a memory and Goren is trying to keep that memory alive by bringing back some old school recipes that have fallen by the way side due to being too finicky or too old fashioned for modern tastes. The first recipe I tried was Flan. Goren’s instructions were flawless, and made the creation of this intimidating custard dessert fairly simple. I still managed to set off the smoke alarm and burn the caramel until I got the hang of it (turns out you really can’t turn your back on it for even a second) but I’d prefer not to dwell on that incident. Once I aired out the house and started again the results were wonderful.

There’s something special about baking and eating together as a family. I’m planning to try several of these classics, including the cheesecake. Who knows, maybe I’ll even whip out the copper jello molds. The nostalgia wafting off every page of Traditional Jewish Baking is more than worth the effort.

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I did not grow up on light foods. Chicken soup, potato kugel, and cholent can be delicious when prepped by the right hands, but they are extremely heavy. They are the foods of my shtetl ancestors, reflecting the land they were living on, their limited budgets, but also the fact that they worked off the calories during their labors. Despite our much improved economic situation and proximity to groceries since that time, salad as the main star of a meal was still a new concept for me as a teen. When my family desired a salad on the table we took some lettuce, threw on a pint of grape tomatoes, and covered the whole thing with store bought dressing. Let’s just say I was not enthused about the entire project.

Salads still found their way to me despite my lack of excitement on the subject. Lots of the other girls in high school enjoyed them, and my classmates were far more creative in both their ingredients and dressing choices. At a certain point, when every teenage girl in sight appeared to be dieting, salads became the “in” thing to eat at lunch or when going out with friends. This is rather hilarious because the billion toppings and dressings they smothered their vegetables in made the bulk of those salads anything but dietetic. Still, they were very tasty and I liked the idea of food that didn’t sit on me so heavily, even if I wasn’t particularly concerned with dieting. I began to experiment, and it turns out I had some skill at salad invention.

I get asked to prepare salads a lot these, I’m sort of known for my repertoire, so I’m always on the lookout for fun new ideas. Which is why I picked up Melisa Ben-Ishay’s Come Hungry. I had no idea the author was co-founder of Baked by Melissa. I just knew the book was jump started by a salad recipe that went viral.  I wanted to see what that story was all about and whether the salad in question lived up to the hype.

Inside, I found a colorful and appetizing array of salads as well as toasts and breads. Many of the dressing are simple, but some utilize nutritional yeast and ground nuts to give more flavor to vegan recipes. Others put a protein on top for a full meal. The very first recipe I tried was telling – braised beets. Because you can take the peasant out of the shtetl but you can’t take the shtetl out of the peasant. Nor would I want you to. I am not ashamed to love beets, and these beets were fantastic. I eat them at least once a week now. 

The dessert section also looked intriguing but I haven’t yet had the time to make most of the recipes as Passover got in the way. The ice box cakes look delightful and I’m dying to try them out. I suppose it’s a good thing it’s almost summer.

Come Hungry is not a kosher cookbook per se, but I only found one recipe that wasn’t actually kosher and it was very easily modified. In addition there are beautiful photos of Melisa’s Jewish family, including a section on cooking with kids and empowering them in the kitchen. The ethos of the title is extremely Jewish and reminds of every Jewish hostess I know. We want our guests to come hungry, so that we can feed and nourishing them. It is a way to show our love. I’m still exploring all the recipes, but I’ve decided I can’t make do with the copy I took out from the library and will be buying my own. 

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You can spot a good cookbook by how dog eared and ratty it is. My copy of Daniella Silver and Norene Gilletz’s The Silver Platter has various substances spattered across its pages, numerous loose sheets tucked into the front cover, and a veritable office supply store’s worth of those small post it flags meant to signify important pages. It is one of my most used books, and I am super grateful to my sibling for gifting it to me when I was first starting out in the kitchen.

The Silver Platter has an interesting authorship set up. Daniella Silver, whose family includes some people with food restrictions for medical reasons, was interested in writing a wholesome yet still elegant cookbook. She approached a more senior member of her community, Norene Gilletz, who had already achieved some success in the cookbook arena. Under Norene’s mentorship, Daniella developed the recipes and Norene has placed helpful tips and tricks – called Norene’s Notes – throughout. I actually really enjoyed both that book origin story and the unique flavor each author brings to the book. Daniella clearly thinks about what goes into each recipe, and how malleable it is for people with different dietary restrictions. Meanwhile, Norene is out there trying to make the entire process easier and more streamlined. It’s a winning combination.

I suspect that at some point after it came out, this book was offered as the giveaway to various charity auctions if you bought a high enough ticket package. Quite a few people have it, but have not actually opened it up/plumbed it’s depths and this is a crying shame. Food restrictions abound these days and there’s something for everyone in here. Plus, a lot of the recipes are good for Passover – there’s four different quinoa recipes!

My list of favorite dishes from The Silver Platter is lengthy, but hopefully by telling you more about each one you get a fuller picture for the book itself. The rice noodle stir fry/pancit was a hit with my picky eaters. I like to make the chinese chicken and mushrooms when cooking for a kimpeturin (mother who recently gave birth) since it’s not the same chicken and rice everyone else sends, and the orange and soy marinated chicken flies off the plate. You don’t even need to fire up the BBQ – I make it on a grill pan all the time and it is incredibly moist and flavorful. I don’t cook a lot of meat, but the Best Roast Brisket recipe (that’s the actual name of the recipe) helped me through my first shabbat roast when I was having company and I’ve returned to it again and again.

Moving over to the desserts, the chocolate bark is super easy yet looks super fancy and you can start mixing in your own topping choices once you get a feel for it. The white chocolate and apricot cookies are stunning, and the Cookie Cake is so fun, and slides right out of the bundt pan as promised.

There are also a lot of salads and grains – did I mention the quinoa yet? – but salads are a weirdly innate skill for me and so it is not often I use recipes for them, but I do like looking at the photos for inspiration. The presentations are bright and effective. Almost every page fulfills the old adage about healthy eating – make sure your plate is colorful.

I’m not one for keeping books pristine. They are meant to be used, loved, and read. In this cake I have practically used this book to the death and it still holds up. If you’ve got picky eaters, food restrictions, or if you are simply looking to bring a little more variety to your table, the Silver Platter is a good place to start.

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As you might have guessed, my books are cherished and I do not part with them easily. Cookbooks especially so. I actually have a decent size collection with a special cabinet to store them. But today I’m going to tell you about the time I sold one. You see, I’d accidentally wound up with two copies of Spice and Spirit by Tzuvia Emmer and Tziporah Reitman. As I prepared to move out for college I purchased one for myself, and unbeknownst to me my mother did too. I put the extra book up on a resale site (remember, I was a broke college student) but I couldn’t really bear to part with it, so I listed it for a ridiculous amount of money. And then a month later someone bought it. 

Now why was this person willing to pay an obscene amount of money for one cookbook, and why did I refuse to sell them my second copy when they offered even more money for it? Well, Spice and Spirit is kind of a classic and it had gone temporarily out of print right after I bought it. There’s a reason my mother and I both thought it was important to have a copy of my own in my apartment. This book has literally been gifted by scores of Ashkenazi women to their daughters as they got married, or to any relative when they moved out on their own for the first time. I knew it would come back in print (you can easily buy it now for about $35 American), but I didn’t want to go even a few months without it. Neither did the mystery purchaser who said their daughter was getting married in a week. The second copy would have gone to their niece in a similar situation. 

Why? Why is a cookbook which doesn’t even have pictures such a hot ticket? Why does it continue to sell even thirty years after publication?

Before the recipe sections, there is a thorough explanation of Jewish Asheknazi customs including things that only come up once a year and thus can easily be forgotten – like whether we make one or two blessings over the candles on the second day of Sukkot and Passover. Albeit, from a largely Lubavitch perspective. I grew up in a religious household. I was taught these things in school. My mother had learned them at her mother’s knee. Still we always felt the need to double check in the book. I still sometimes do, and the nostalgia of that, the connection to so many women who have used the same text for this exact reason across generations, is not something I’m willing to put a price tag on. So I kept my book. I do not regret it. 

Now, I mentioned the book does not have photos – it was conceived and printed before the days of kosher cookbooks with full page glossy food photos- but it does contain really useful sketches of techniques, including different ways to braid and shape challah. They are easy to follow, and produce a great result. Spice and Spirit is also is jam packed full of traditional and modern Ashkenazi recipes. My copy has a sticky note in the front cover where I have written, in extremely cramped handwriting, all the recipes other people have told me are tried and true. It grows so fast I have added a second one and I’m still working my way through it. So which ones can I personally recommend? The mushroom barley soup is simple but delicious. I make it all the time and it never disappoints. The black and white cookies are fairly fool proof, and the variety of kugels is unmatched. 

I knew the laws of kashrut inside and out when I first got my own kitchen, but I had relatively little experience actually cooking. My mother didn’t enjoy it much (something I learned later and still laugh about given the discovery that I do enjoy it quite a bit). This book taught me the ropes.. And it did so with some simple pencil drawings and no nonsense recipes that avoided what we called “patchke” (a million ingredients, steps, and gadgets and pans that will later need to be washed). It’s a stalwart of Ashkenaz cooking and can also be enjoyed by Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews – or non Jews – who enjoy Ashkenaz food. To me these recipes taste like home. 

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If you’ve ever had the pleasure of being a guest in the home of Aleppian Jews, you will understand why Aromas of Aleppo is the first cookbook I chose for cookbook week. The cuisine of Syrian Jews is indeed legendary, as is their hosting. You will not leave hungry. Arrays of colorful plates and dainty foods that have been individually folded and stuffed will greet you. You will hear tales of amazing women of valor – including the spectacular dishes they made. You will be taken care of, body and soul.

Aromas of Aleppo, written by Poopa Dweck, focuses specifically on the food of Jews from Aleppo, Syria. While they mostly now live in the diaspora, their food traditions remain strong. Dweck takes the reader on a trip through time, explaining how the different diaspora communities came to their current locations, but also what life was life back in Syria and how this was reflected in the gastronomic offerings.

I do not use Aromas of Aleppo for the recipes (I actually find Rae Dayan’s For the Love of Cooking to be easier to work with, if slightly less comprehensive). Instead, I drool over the photos. This is the ultimate coffee table book – it’s kind of huge, it will not fit easily on your lap or the little holders people have for standard sized cookbooks, and the photos are glossy and intriguing.

Also not to be missed is the section on life cycle events and holidays foods in the back. One can learn about many interesting and unique customs, some of which are kept to today and some of which are not, and which foods pair with which holidays. Plus there are historic as well as current day photos to bring the entire thing to life.

If you do want to try your hand at a few of the recipes – and I can’t blame you!- My personal favorites are Djaj wa Rishta (chicken and spaghetti), which is always a huge hit with all ages, and Keftes (tamarind stewed meatballs). Plus, if you’ve never made Tamarind concentrate yourself (almost nobody has, it’s sold in stores these days) it’s worth trying once for the experience.

Aromas of Aleppo is a book that wants to take you on a journey. You should let it.

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Nothing signifies my everlasting devotion to this project, and my commitment to expanding our offerings, than my continued willingness to try and understand poetry. We have long since covered that as an art form, it does not come naturally for me. Yet, in reading Sweet Malida by Zilka Joseph, I was hugely rewarded. The collection is full of evocative details, contains two prose poems (a form I actually adore!) and spoke in the universal language of food. 

I don’t know very much about the Bene Israel community of Jews in India and was very interested to learn about their unique cultural heritage. Jospeh writes movingly about how some of her own experiences, as well as those of her father as a ship engineer, remind her of her ancestors that are presumed to have shipwrecked onto the coast of India where they found a place to bury their dead, and a welcoming land where they could recover. 

My favorite poems though, were about her memories of food. Specifically, food preparation. I could see generations working together in the kitchen, cooking traditional dishes like the one that gives the book its title – sweet malida. Joseph’s grandmother was like a larger than life character, brewing wine every Friday for the sabbath, and I wondered how the family all got along while living in the same house. 

The Bene Israel have several special customs related to the prophet Elijah who takes a special place in their celebrations. Having studied many of the Elijah Torah stories in my youth, I was pleased to meet them again here and learn about what they mean for this community. Particularly inspiring was the way Joesph talks about the carrion birds that brought Elijah meals. These birds are not kosher, and thus are often looked down on, but as Joseph points out, they too serve a purpose. They too are Gods creations. 

There was only one poem I could not understand (usually it’s 50-80%), and the reading was very sensory. My mouth watered and I found myself searching for an accompanying recipe compendium. I’d like to read more about the Bene Israel, their foods, customs and traditions. Sweet Malida was an excellent place to start. 

BookishlyJewish received a copy of this book from the publicist.

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The thing about second world fantasy that blows my mind every time is that the writer can literally bypass or ignore every single hegemonic norm about the world we currently live in. Since the book is not set in the world we inhabit, nor bogged down by our history, it has the potentially to be something entirely. In her debut adult fantasy The Sins On Their Bones, Laura R. Samotin looks past reheated Christian hegemony and cis het norms to build a world that is both distinctly Jewish and very queer norm. The result is an immersive and transporting experience. 

Readers do not need any prior knowledge of Judaism to understand the story, but those that have some Jewish background can appreciate that every town in this very Russian feeling setting has a shul and a Rebbe rather than a church and a priest. Several ceremonies, including those for the sabbath and weddings, are mentioned. Plus, a host of Jewish mythological creatures come out to play. Again, all of this is explained. Familiarity with dybbuks is not required. It is simply refreshing to see a back drop that does not assume we are all familiar with Christian traditions. 

In addition, in the world of The Sins On Their Bones, being queer is just a thing that is, not a thing that breaks societal norms. In fact, the main plot revolves around two husbands – a tzar overthrown by his abusive spouse who has now used a form of demonology to make himself immortal and usurp the throne. The deposed spouse, Dimitri, has a devoted court that includes a non-binary physician, a female identifying general, a chancellor/tactician that read as ace to me, and a spy master that read to me as either as bi or pan sexual (these identities are never specified outright so I could be wrong). Dimitri is falling for the spy master, but the two men both carry emotional scars that keep them from expressing their feelings. 

When things heat up back in their home country, Dimitri and his court must send the spy master back to gather intel while figuring out how to kill Dimitri’s now immortal spouse. My favorite part of the ensuing shenanigans is the very bizarre library they must consult which comes complete with a prophetic talking head. I could have set an entire book in that delightful place, but we all know I have a penchant for the strange. 

This is a m/m romance with a fair amount of m/m sex in it. It also about about trauma recovery, so not all of that sex is healthy. Readers who might be triggered should pay careful attention to the content warnings. The central love story is one of healing, trust, and triumph over past abuse, but as the title suggests, the characters pasts are so very integrated into their present it might as well be written on their bones. 

I found myself sinking into this world, to this culture, that was so welcoming to me. It has its wealth equality problems and abuses of power just like any other, but Samotin has created a space that feels unique from the world we live in. She imagines what life might be like with something other than our current worlds status quo in charge. Sure, Dimitri might have to fend off his resurrected demon husband, but at least nobody questions why he has a husband in the first place. It is the potential of second world fantasy come to fruition – a place where we can all become whole again.

BookishlyJewish received an ARC of this book from the publisher

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Our Interview with Laura R. Samotin can be found here.

A quick perusal of publishing deal announcements will show you that there are basically two types of fiction books: those described as “lyrical” vs. those described as “voice-y.” It’s a fairly decent stand in for picking out the literary books from the genre. I enjoy both varieties, but skills wise, I’m pretty fairly entrenched in the “voice” camp. Plus, as a reader I find them compulsively fun. Which is why I practically inhaled Rebecca Fraimow’s adult sci fi Lady Eve’s Last Con

I’ve enjoyed Fraimow’s short stories before, because they are often the delicious form of bizarre that makes my heart sing (robot nuns anyone?) and sometimes come paired with queer Jewish representation. In this longer piece we meet Ruthi, a con artist looking to pull a scam on the billionaire that knocked her sister up and dumped her. That’s all well and good, except the young man in question has a big sister named Sol that is hot on Ruthi’s tail and has some shady dealings of her own that keep complicating matters. 

Within two sentences I was completely immersed in both Ruthi’s world and knew exactly who and what she was. This is no small feat, as Lady Eve’s Last Con has a tremendous amount of world building – imagine a space age Bridgerton – yet by carefully selecting Ruthi’s words, Fraimow allows the reader to grasp it all seamlessly. By the time Sol, a veritable lady killer in her own right, shows up I was having a debate with myself about whether I wanted to be Ruthi or be with her. Sol cleared that up – all the girls want to be with Sol. Including Ruthi, which presents a bit of a challenge to the whole conning Sol’s brother plan. 

The book has a delightful sense of humor, exceptionally witty banter, but mostly the best love interest I’ve seen in a very long time. And lest I miss out on any of my favored bizarre factor – kosher duck plays a crucial plot point. 

I’ll admit that my reading and writing favor high heat romance. But sometimes watching two extremely clever individuals circle each other, almost but not quite bringing their flirtation to fruition, has its own benefits. Namely a sex scene at the end that can only be described as explosive. Maybe sometimes good things do come to those that wait. Plus, given the speed with which I read this book, I didn’t have to wait all that long. 

The ways in which I fell in love with these characters are numerous, but it was all made possible by Ruthi’s unique voice. She’s possibly the most distinct character voice I have read this year. I could pick up a random page, out of context, and know instantly that it came from Lady Eve. It’s aspirational, and swoony, and I hope to see more bizarre shenanigan books soon from Fraimow. 

Note: BookishlyJewish received a free e-ARC of this book through NetGalley

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