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Enter buzzcut hottie Tara Esposito. She’s a rule breaker and party crasher of the highest degree, and if anyone knows where to get a fake, it’s her. But Tara has hung up her James Dean leather jacket for the night. If she doesn’t finish this godforsaken essay that’s already weeks late, she can kiss her upcoming graduation goodbye.

One brainy girl who needs a fake ID before sundown. One serial rebel who needs to turn in an essay before sunrise. It’s obvious what needs to happen here. But with a years-long feud keeping the girls from working together, this may be a night to forget…or one they’ll remember forever.

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Kiyokimora GoldWeaver is a disgraced heiress looking to rescue her family business with an audacious scheme to rob the casino. To pull it off, she needs Psalome on board. When they team up, it looks like a simple job – until Psalome meets Ilaria, the jewel in Kiyo’s master plan, and sparks begin to fly.

With a recovering alcoholic card counter and Psalome’s little sister – who happens to be dating The Elysium’s artificial intelligence – as part of the crew, they might still beat the odds… or learn that the house always wins.

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When Elsie discovers her fiancé already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she’s expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she’s let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead.

Ginny thinks it’s high time Elsie learned how to speak up for herself. So, they make a deal with her. For the next week, Elsie can have whatever she wants, wherever, however, and whenever she wants it, as long as she asks. They never expected Elsie to want them.

What starts as choosing activities and taking selfies soon turns to toe-curling kisses and much, much more. But what happens when the honeymoon is over?

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Now in the fall of their senior year, Sadie and Cleo are neck-and-neck for valedictorian. But then a string of increasingly serious pranks take over their high school, and all signs point to Sadie and Cleo as the perpetrators. Suddenly expulsion is on the line, and the only way to clear their names is to team up and find out who is framing them. It’s not only suspects the girls are questioning, though. Sadie’s ivy league dream isn’t feeling as appealing as it once did, and Cleo is wondering if it’s about time she start fighting for what she really wants instead of just accepting whatever comes easiest. With their futures on the line, the two grow closer, and both begin to wonder: Could it be that Sadie and Cleo weren’t meant to be rivals at all, and were instead destined to be something more?

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In this uproariously funny, deeply moving family portrait, readers meet the rest of his absurd clan: his brothers, affectionately nicknamed Asshole, Twin, and Rabbi; his one-eyed pirate queen of a sister, Cathy Sue; and then there’s Bonus, who Andy isn’t aware of until later in life since this mysterious oldest brother grew up at the Green Valley School for Emotionally Disturbed and Delinquent Children.

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Hanna’s rarely stayed in a place longer than a year. The greatest consistency she has is her piano playing, and her dad diving back into his Jewish faith every time her mom leaves on assignment. So when her senior year begins with yet another move to a new school, she’s not planning on putting down roots—she’s learned that hard way how that ends.

But when the girls’ paths collide, everything they thought they knew is turned upside down. Their relationship could change them each forever—if they have the courage to let their worlds fall apart.

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So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings the monster out, he will spare her mother from execution.

When she ventures into the shadowed woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only if Malka helps her fulfill a promise first and free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.

But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save―and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.

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In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people . . . even if the move means leaving behind Hannah’s beloved Bubbe.

When the financial strains of West Coast living push the girls to start stripping at The Chez Paree—yet another secret Hannah must keep from her family—Hannah feels trapped. Sam wants her at the club, but Hannah hates stripping nearly as much as she hates disappointing Sam. Then Hannah meets Chris, an older butch lesbian, who is immediately taken with her. Desperate to stay in San Francisco and away from the leering men at the club, Hannah proposes an escort arrangement.

But as Hannah falls deeper into Chris’ world and Sam starts to meet new queer friends, a rift forms between them. Without Sam, who is Hannah? And what does San Francisco mean to Hannah alone—a space rich with queer possibility or an intimidating, unfamiliar place just as lonely as the one she’d left behind? An achingly tender and resonant story of survival, first love, and growing up queer in the ’90s, Girls Girls Girls is a piercing exploration of the choices we make in the thrilling and often confounding search for ourselves and home.

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Instead, she lost touch with her freshman orientation friend group, skipped classes, and failed completely at being the studious premed student her parents wanted her to be. 

But the biggest derailment of all? Her newly minted ex-boyfriend—and the fact that she had a boyfriend to begin with. When she met Alden, he made her feel wanted, he made her feel free. He made her feel . . . like she could be like him, which was exciting and confusing all at once.

So, Zoe decides a second fresh start is in order: She’s going to take a cross-country train from New York to Seattle for fall break. There, no one will know who she is, and she can outrun her mistakes.

Or so she thinks until she meets Oakley, who’s the opposite of Zoe in so many ways: effortlessly cool and hot, smart, self-assured. But as Zoe and Oakley make their way across the country, Zoe realizes that Oakley’s life has also gone off the rails—and that they might just be able to help each other along before that train finally leaves the station.

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Soon Lilah finds herself in Rome, trying to unlock her grandfather’s history as a Holocaust survivor once and for all. But as she and Tommaso get closer to the truth—and their relationship begins to deepen into something sweeter—Lilah realizes that some secrets may be too painful to unbury… 

Then:

It’s 1943, and nineteen-year-old Bruna and her family are doing their best to survive in Rome’s Jewish quarter under Nazi occupation. Until the dreaded knock comes early one morning, and Bruna is irrevocably separated from the rest of her family.

Overcome with guilt at escaping her family’s fate in the camps, she joins the underground rebellion. When her missions bring her back to her childhood crush, Elsa, Bruna must decide how much she’s willing to risk—when fully embracing herself is her greatest act of resistance.

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But Dimitri is still healing from the tragedies of the war, his return to the throne, and Alexey’s years of torment. Vasily Sokolov is the only person with whom he feels safe, and giving up the comfort of their budding relationship feels unfathomable, even if it’s the only way to sever the alliances being formed among the countries surrounding Novo-Svitsevo. So as Dimitri and Vasily reckon with political treachery, the lasting consequences of Dimitri’s resurrection, and the sinister legacy of Alexey’s use of the Holy Science, they must also work to understand what it means to love each other even as they prepare to let each other go—which might prove the most difficult of all.

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At SOSAD, A and his friends Sal and Yarrow sit by while their parents deadname them and wring their hands over a nonexistent “transgender craze.” After all, sitting in suffocating silence has to be better than getting sent away for “advanced treatment,” never to be heard from again.

When Yarrow vanishes after a particularly confrontational meeting, A discovers that SOSAD doesn’t just feel soul-sucking…it’s run by an actual demon who feeds off the pain and misery of kids like him. And it’s not just SOSAD—the entire world is beset by demons dining on what seems like an endless buffet of pain and bigotry.

But how is one trans kid who hasn’t even chosen a name supposed to save his friend, let alone the world? And is a world that seems hellbent on rejecting him even worth saving at all?

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Briar does have one redeeming factor, though: Here, in Rachel’s hometown, D.J. can finally get to the bottom of her cousin’s death. With the help of a chatty journalist and a queen-bee hacker, D.J. can fill in the last days of Rachel’s life. And if she can just figure out her Torah portion—with help from her cute tutor, Jonah—maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to solve a bigger mystery.

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Okay, maybe her friends are right: She’s slightly parasocially infatuated. But Amelia just knows sparks would fly—if only she could connect with Walter for real. 

If only he would host a meet and greet. 

If only it were just a short road trip away. 

And if only Amelia could talk her best friends into making it the perfect last hurrah before graduation—even her newly single, always-cynical, guitar-toting best friend Natalie.

One thing’s for sure: All roads lead to butterflies.

But what if Amelia’s butterflies aren’t for Walter at all? 

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The holiday of Shavuot is best known for the tradition of staying up all night and learning Torah, but it is also the moment when the Jewish people went from a ragtag band of former slaves on the run to a full fledged nation, unified in our common covenant with our God. That unity is what I like to focus on. There are many ways of interpreting that covenant, and our Torah, but it should never divide us. Rabbi Dov Linzer and journalist Abigail Pogrebin epitomize that ethos in their book It Takes Two Torah.

Rabbi Linzer, a Modern Orthodox Rabbi, is more willing to seek outside perspective and acknowledge it as valid than most people associate with any kind of Orthodox Judaism. Meanwhile, Pogrebin is more insightful and clearly dedicated to Torah study than people tend to give Reform Jews credit for. Learning together on their podcast, one torah portion a week, they challenged those stereotypes and each other. Now their conversations have been gathered into one volume.

As a person who struggles with audio formats, I was grateful to have this conversation in print. The discussion was lively, and they did not shy away from some of the sketchier topics – sotah anyone? They also never gave away their original premise. Rabbi Linzer views the Torah as a divine blueprint for life while Pogrebin sees it more as a touchstone text to learn about Jewish ethics without an obligation to necessarily follow all the rules therein as our understanding of the world and social justice evolves. However, there is one common denominator. As Jews we believe it is our goal to grapple with our text, to turn it over and over, rather than just blindly accept it. And these two deliver on that concept!

Although Rabbi Linzer admittedly knows more of the text by heart than Pogrebin (side effect of his day job I suppose) we never get the sense that one of the two is teaching the other. Instead, they are struggling together, each bringing in thoughts from their own traditions to teach the other, and trying to reach some form of conclusion. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. But conclusions aren’t the point. The point is the argument itself. That is how we engage in Torah and keep it relevant.

It Takes Two To Torah is rooted in its time. There are references to the COVID pandemic and BLM protests. But it is also a durable document. A roadmap for how to engage with each other across denominations in polite, but no less heated, scholarly discourse. In that way, it emulates the everlasting Torah itself. A worthy aspiration.

BookishyJewish received a finished copy of this book from the publisher.

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They don’t make them like they used to. Usually, this is a nostalgic cry for times gone by, but in the case of a Batya Gur’s Michael Ohayon detective novels, it’s simply a statement of modern reality. The first novel, Saturday Morning Murder, which I read in translation by Dalya Bilu, was published in the 1930’s, long before modern methods of crime detection came to dominate crime fiction. Which is part of what makes it so delightful. 

There’s is no DNA evidence or mass spectrometer here. The most exciting bit of forensics is matching a bullet to a gun that we all already knew was the murder weapon anyway. An entire twisty plot point would be laughable in today’s age of electronic records. So how does Detective Ohayon get anything done? Well, he talks to people and he noticed small discrepancies. Michael Ohayon is a master at slowly, methodically entering the heads of those involved in the case. Despite his superiors constant nagging that he speed it up, he takes the time to fully understand the suspects and their milleu. Which is not to say that his own personal life is not a great big dumpster fire of disaster, because it most definitely is, but this ability to connect with those involved in a case gives him an insight into how to make them talk. How to catch what others overlook. 

Each book in the series is meant to be a mental deep dive into a particular community. It feels fitting the first such group featured is one that deals exclusively in the matters of the mind – a psychoanalytic institute. In order to solve the murder of a leading analyst, Michael must learn all about analysis, including the people who perform and seek it. It’s an explanatory handbook on a topic readers might not otherwise understand even on a surface level. 

Don’t get me wrong, a walk down nostalgia lane has its drawbacks. There’s a certain sexism inherent in Detective Ohayon’s dealings, his dealings with women pretty deplorable. However, the choice to have the main detective be of Moroccan descent makes his interactions with the “outsiders” of his society more relatable. He too has felt the sting of rejection from a European elite that doesn’t recognize his accomplishments as worthy, or assumes he is less than. Also refreshing is that while Detective Ohayan may not find analysis particularly attractive, it is clear that a significant military side character is greatly benefiting from it. It’s just too bad his analyst has been murdered. 

Without the trips to the lab there’s more space for the characters to breathe. It gives Saturday Morning Murder a different pace and style than modern readers might be used to. I don’t think I could read the entire series back to back. However, I definitely intend to read the rest. They’re a nice break from the hectic crush of social media and molecular biology filled thrillers. Sometimes, it’s good to revisit our past.

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Memorial day is fast approaching, and with it what many consider the unofficial start of summer in the U.S. Looking for a good book to take to the beach? We’ve got you covered! While they don’t technically all feature islands, these books do feature popular summer vacation destinations (and remember, Manhattan is an island.).

Her search takes her to dreamy Fire Island, where her birth mother is a guest at a wedding. As Maggie spies on her biological family, she’s caught between diving into their chaotic lives and returning to her comfortable world. Things heat up when a charming local makes her an offer to crash the wedding as his date.

Is it the island’s magic, the whirlwind of the weekend, or the thrill of a fake beau that has her rethinking everything? Swept away by every love song she hears, Maggie must figure out where her heart truly lies.

Love it? Good news! There’s two more in the Fire Island series, and they can be read in any order..

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The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when there’s other drama brewing. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies.
 
When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes.  All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. Without their mother’s guidance, and with their father busy playing pickleball in a Florida retirement village, the once close-knit siblings search for comfort in shiny new toys instead of each other.
 
It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together.

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But hooking up with the cute boy on the ferry doesn’t count, right? At least, not until that cute boy turns out to be Ethan Barbanel. As in, her father’s longtime research assistant Ethan Barbanel, the boy Jordan has hated from afar for years. And to make matters worse, Jordan might actually be falling for him.

As if that didn’t complicate her life enough, Jordan’s new summer job with a local astronomer turns up a centuries-old mystery surrounding Gibson’s Comet—and as she dives into her research, what she learns just might put her growing relationship with Ethan in jeopardy.

Loved this books so much you’re sad it’s over? Not to fear, it’s part of an entire series and each book can be read independently in any order.

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How’s a girl supposed to choose?

She can’t, and so both summers play out in alternating timelines – one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the girl she’s always wanted. And one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the guy she never saw coming.

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Between the troublesome family secrets, old sibling rivalries, and her two teenage grandkids, Annette’s birthday vacation is looking more and more like the perfect storm. Adrift together on the open seas, the Feldmans will each face the truths they’ve been ignoring—and learn that the people they once thought most likely to sink them are actually the ones who help them stay afloat.

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Heartbroken, Shelby tries to move on and focus on her next novel. But then an unexpected call comes: her dear friend who owns the beloved Land’s End bookshop needs help for the summer. Shelby reluctantly returns to the Cape to manage the store.

Back at the beach, Shelby sets her focus on the tiny seaside shop, getting lost in the shelves of steamy romance novels and dusty classics and trying to right the wrongs of her past. With every page turned and every customer served, Shelby comes closer to gaining back the trust of those she hurt. But as her manuscript deadline nears, she is again forced to choose between her own success and a second chance at love and belonging.

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But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life.

And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.

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Hannah, whose worst nightmare is making small talk with strangers, is challenged to go on twelve first dates. Libby, who once claimed to have period cramps for four weeks straight to get out of gym class, is challenged to compete in an obstacle course race. The challenges begin with Hannah helping Libby train and Libby managing the dating app on her sister’s behalf. They’re both making good progress—until Hannah’s first love rolls into town, and Libby accidentally falls for a guy she’s supposed to be setting up with her sister.

Things get even more complicated when secrets come to light, making the sisters question the one relationship they’ve always counted on: each other. With their company’s future on the line, they can’t afford to fail. But in trying to make a comeback to honor their grandmother, are they pushing themselves down the wrong path?

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It has been brought to my attention that I write characters with extensive wardrobes. Apparently, I’m a little bit of a fashionista and I perceive clothes easier than I do faces and facial expressions. Which is kind of funny, because as a kid I hated fashion and shopping. Probably because my school uniform and modesty code was forcing me into clothes that were clearly not intended for my body type. I guess that’s what happens when you let a man dictate what women should wear. I’m in charge of my own clothes now and the results, while hopefully still modest, no longer make me feel ugly or misshapen. Because my body is my own and it shouldn’t have to be clothed with the male gaze in mind. I love to shop now! And I loved learning how some legendary department stores had similar transformations when taken over by women, as detailed in Julie Satow’s When Women Ran Fifth Avenue. 

Most of the women featured in the book are in fact not Jewish, but the Satow takes pains to give a full history while chronicling three famed women, and the Jewish involvement in the garment and clothing is undeniable. I wish more time had been spent on Beatrice Fox Auerbach, the Jewish owner of G. Fox and Company, who seemed to be as generous as she was clever. It’s rumored she was the inspiration behind Don’s “one that got away” department store owner love interest on Mad Men. Also included is a chapter on what most consider the first black owned department store, Saint Luke Emporium, run by activist and entrepreneur Maggie Lena Walker.

There is glitz and glamor in When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, but there is also cut throat fashion industry politics and some very sad commentary on women balancing careers and personal lives. You get the sense these ladies had to make choices that were most certainly not required of their male counterparts. But you also see how allowing women to take the reigns and create a shopping experience for other women works so much better than letting men tell us what we want (There’s an enraging quote by a man that assumes all women are dressing to impress men. Sigh.). I may have my objections to Geraldine Stutz’s choice of ideal body type and Bendel’s only stocking items for that particular kind of person, but Lena Himmelstein (Jewish!), creator of Lane Bryant is right there standing as a counterpoint to her.

Online shopping has changed the entire industry, as has fast fashion. You can’t take a stroll through Bendel’s anymore, and the Bonwitt Teller building is now a Trump Towers. Things change, our tastes evolve, but the I remember these lessons every time I dress myself. I can be whoever I want to be, present whatever face to the world I like, and that is partially thanks to these women who gave women a safe space to buy their clothes. 

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I’ve been a mother and I’ve been a daughter and let me tell you, living on both sides of that relationship still has not clarified it. So this mother’s day I’m choosing to review a book that details the most beautiful aspects of being both a mother and a daughter.

Honey and Me by Meira Drazin, is a book that most publishing professionals would call “quiet”. Which is usually the kiss of death, because in my experience if you don’t blow up a spaceship in the first chapter people are going to tell you that you are losing the reader and this will never sell as a debut. So let us celebrate the miracle that a book about two best friends going through their bat mitzvah year together managed to pass the daunting gauntlets of being both “quiet” and involving orthodox Jews which usually gets labelled “too niche.” Possibly this is due to the fact that it won the Sydney Taylor manuscript award. At least the publisher knew it would get the award winner sticker right from the get go.

Regardless, I am grateful Honey and Me made it because while the story details the friendship between two Orthodox girls, and how one must come out of the shadow of the other, it also details the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters. Milla has a small family and her mother has given up a career to raise Milla and her brother. Milla’s mother also channels most of her energy (and likely her disappointment at not being able to have more children) towards keeping a meticulous home and volunteering with Milla’s school. As an adult, I recognized right away this was not the healthiest dynamic, so I can understand why Milla prefers to spend her time at her best friend Honey’s house full of kids and fun.

When Honey and Milla’s classmates each have their own bat mitzvah experiences we see how each girl and her family have chosen to celebrate this milestone. We also find Milla fully coming into her own, even as the transfer of Honey into Milla’s school shakes up a lot of ideas she has about herself. The crux of the book is the Milla-Honey relationship and how they grow into their own adult selves, but I was most moved by the Milla-Milla’s Mom interactions. Just as Honey and Milla each celebrate their bat mitzvah’s in a unique way that is perfect for them, Milla must realize that her family – and not anyone elses – is the one she is meant to have, because they are perfect for her.

It is a book full of growth – not only for the children but also for the parents. However, the reader is asked to grow too. I have been told when I write about orthodox characters it is “too disorienting” for non-orthodox readers. While Drazin gives excellent context clues and explanations, she doesn’t water down the experience. It was particularly meaningful for me, as this was similar to parts of my childhood and also part of my mothering. Just like Milla, I had both the family and the religious life that was meant for me, and I was so fulfilled to see it reflected in a traditionally published book.

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As an author, I usually try to disguise the self insert characters at least a little. But in the opening pages of ON FIRE ISLAND by Jane Rosen, the author makes it clear she’s going all in and giving us a main character that works in publishing (an editor who oddly edits her own spouses books). However, this kind of works because the self same narrator is dead. Which we also find out pretty quickly into the first page.

As far as dead narrators go, Julia Morse is a fairly likable one. She looks at most things with a dark sense of humor and wonders right along with the reader why she is still here observing the goings on of her family and neighbors on fire island the summer after her own funeral. Julia’s death provides us two major narrative advantages. One, she is clearly a very omniscient third person narrator, so we can follow around several different groups of people on fire island and get the scoop behind their backstories. It’s not odd that Julia gives us people’s entire life histories, including that of the guy that makes the sandwiches at her favorite store, because she is chatting with us from the vantage point of death. Second, her romance with her literary star writer husband would be way too saccharine for me if this was a romance. It’s all perfect looking people with exciting careers falling in love and not much struggle. I would be happy for her, but not lining up to read about it in a novel. After her death? Well, it’s just tragic and poignant and I really needed to know what happened with Julia and her spouse.

Julia’s now widower husband is one of the many characters we meet on fire island, and understandably our tour guide is rather fond of him. There’s a plot point about his last contracted novel that could be a nice reveal for anyone who doesn’t see it coming from a mile away like I did. Either way, his grief is handled with that sense of macabre humor that I already noted, and his story line is generally fulfilling. In fact, the ability to craft multiple genuinely fulfilling story lines for a host of well fleshed out characters is the highlight of On Fire Island. From the two teenagers looking to give each other a very exciting send off before college to the kleptomaniac who seems to only steal restaurant silverware, every person we meet is given a full treatment and we come to know and love them as we do our own quirky neighbors.

This story is a love letter to Fire Island, which will be the setting for the following two books in the series that are seeded here, but also to the communities of people we create around ourselves wherever we go. Sure, the narrator may be dead, but she formed so many connections while she was alive and that web continues on spinning without her. Plus, the publishing bits even seem somewhat realistic. (I especially enjoyed the agent). I’m looking forward to reading the next two books, although I will admittedly miss Julia. Even though I only met her long past her fictional demise, it’s nice to chat one publishing person to another.

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Find It: Amazon | Bookshop | BookishlyJewish Review