nonfiction

Book Review: We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman

Stephanie1 Comment

I struggle to understand a lot of things sometimes, especially the tough parts of the world. Some things are just so terrible that I find them difficult to grasp, and I have to read multiple books about those subjects in order to feel like I’m making any headway at fully getting it. The situation in Syria the past twenty years or so is definitely on that list, and I’m not sure I’ll ever fully comprehend, but I keep trying. It just so happened that after reading Other Words for Home, which dealt with a young girl immigrating from Syria, one of the next ebooks available from my library was We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman (Custom House, 2017). It’s the kind of book I wish everyone would read, especially those people who don’t want Syrian immigrants coming to their countries, and who boast about how THEY would stay and fight if their country went the way that Syria did. Those people have no clue, no idea what Syrians have gone through, and I wish they would educate themselves.

Arranged in a style reminiscent of the interview-style books of Svetlana Alexievich, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled tells the story of a country and the people who loved and left it when a devastating crisis tore it apart. Each section recounts the history of the crisis through its citizens, the ones who hoped and dreamed of living in a country where their voices could be heard and they could live in freedom, the ones who worked for it and fought for it, and the ones for whom the country gradually turned into a living hell.

Starvation. Rape. Beheadings. Explosions. Gunshots. Imprisonment in the most deplorable conditions imaginable. Torture. Constant fear. All this and more are what the citizens of Syria lived with every day before many of them fled the country for a chance to live in safety. Some of the testimonials are lengthy (though not more than a few pages); others are just a few words, but each eloquently describes nightmarish situations that will break the heart of even the most jaded reader.

The style makes this an easily readable book; the content makes it difficult. Ms. Pearlman makes it easy, however, to place yourself in the shoes of the Syrians interviewed, however, and I learned a lot that I hadn’t known before about just how terrible the situation was before so many people made the difficult decision to leave their country (difficult in that it’s always hard to leave your home, and the conditions they traveled in were bleak and often deadly; leaving was likely the best decision out of a handful of terrible options). The prisons weren’t something I’d known about before; the conditions in them were shocking to read about, as were the accounts of torture (if you’ve ever read anything about Iraqi prisons, it’s similar). When people fighting for a better life in Syria were captured by the government, the soldiers would go through their phones and begin rounding up all their contacts. And that’s just the beginning of the reign of terror that so many Syrians needed to flee.

I’m glad I read this, though it’s a heartbreaking book, and it’s one I’m going to be recommending every single time I see people crowing about how people fleeing desperate situations should just stay and fight. That’s something that’s extremely easy to say from the comfort of your own home in a stable country, and when you have a better understanding what people are fleeing, statements like that sound even more appallingly callous. If you don’t have a great understanding of what caused so many Syrians to leave home, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria should be on your list.

Visit Wendy Pearlman’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz

Stephanie1 Comment

I’ve enjoyed Hannah Moskowitz since she first blasted onto the YA scene with Break in 2009. Her addition to It’s a Whole Spiel blew me away, and so I was thrilled that the next book on my TBR (ebook edition, since that’s what I’m focused on now) was her Sick Kids in Love (Entangled: Teen, 2019). The tagline for this book is, ‘They don’t die in this one,’ which was a relief to read (you know, having been traumatized by all the Lurlene McDaniel tragedy porn I read growing up, and then again by John Green with The Fault in Our Stars). I still stressed out while reading this excellent book, though.

Isabel is sick. She’s had rheumatoid arthritis since she was eight (not diagnosed until age nine), so she knows pain and what it’s like to live with a debilitating illness, what it’s like to have to plan your entire life around your unpredictable body, what it’s like to have no one around you really get what it’s like to live with this always hanging over you, what it’s like for an illness to just be part of who you are. She doesn’t date- for a lot of reasons- but then she meets Sasha, another chronically sick kid, and her life turns upside down. Sasha gets it. Sasha understands what it’s like to have a body he can’t trust. And dammit, he’s cute with a capital CUTE.

When she decides to let go and jump in with both feet, things are…good. There are the usual romance ups and downs: they annoy each other; they like different things; Isabel can’t make up her mind about anything; both of them have struggles with their conditions. And then the little things become big things, and things get tough. Isabel needs to learn to make decisions, to speak up for herself and maybe learn to make the necessary changes that come when you’re no longer alone and have to compromise to get along.

I loved this. I loved this a lot. Hannah Moskowitz (who is indeed a sick kid; she has ankylosing spondylitis, a type of spinal arthritis- I’m familiar with it because it shares a lot of symptoms with my back/pelvis issues and is often misdiagnosed as what I have for years. Which makes me wonder a lot, but doctors don’t seem to want to investigate further, so whatever) is wise beyond her years and shows it all over the place yet again. Life with chronic pain is so eloquently explained in this book; if you live with chronic pain or you love someone who does and want to understand, you NEED this book. NEED. I’m going to quote a section below that made me gasp. I read it, read it again, reread it, and then copied it down, because it summed up what chronic pain is like so, so well:

You stop noticing pain, is the thing.

You notice it when it’s really bad, or when it’s different, but…on the rare occasion someone asks me what it’s like to live with RA, I don’t ever know what to say. They ask me if it’s painful, and I say yes because I know intellectually it must be, because the idea of doing some of the things that other people do without thinking fills me with dread and panic, but I always think about it mechanically. I can’t do x. I don’t want to do y. I don’t continue the thought into I can’t do that because it would hurt. I don’t want to do that because then I would be in pain.

You can’t live like that. There’s only so much you can carry quietly by yourself, so you turn an illness into a list of rules instead of a list of symptoms, and you take pills that don’t help, and you do the stretches, and you think instead of feeling. You think.

And you don’t soak in hot water and feel the tension bleed out of your joints because it’s just going to remind you that it will come right back.

This is it. This is it entirely. This is what I live with, and Hannah Moskowitz has put it into words. All hail our new leader! Long live the queen! Seriously, this put my feelings and frustrations into words far better than I can at this point (it’s been a really bad year for pain for me; I’ve been on steroids four times since the pandemic started- my doctors don’t think that’s at all a problem, apparently- my neuropathy is going wild, my gabapentin doses have increased 300% and still aren’t covering it all, the Celebrex doesn’t work at all anymore so I’ve stopped taking it…). The tests coming back normal when you’re barely able to function- when that happened to Isabel, I nearly wept, because that’s something I so understand (right along with being blown off by doctors. It’s like there’s a giant belief of, “It’s just pain, why do you care so much?” attitude in the medical community. Quality of life means nothing, and it’s so, so good to hear someone else talk about this. THANK YOU, HANNAH MOSKOWITZ.

(Also? Two Jewish main characters, THANK YOU, HANNAH MOSKOWITZ. Truly. Long live the queen!)

So I loved this. It was a fun, sweet love story about two kids who get each other, but who are also still trying to get themselves, because they’re teenagers, and on a large level, it drops some serious truth bombs about life with health problems that aren’t ever going away. This book got me- as a forty-year-old woman, it got me, and I am so utterly grateful for that.

Follow Hannah Moskowitz on Twitter here.

Check out her Wikipedia page here.

fiction · middle grade

Book Review: Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

Stephanie4 Comments

Another library ebook for me! Next up on my TBR was Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga (Balzer and Bray, 2019). This has been on my list since I first learned about it. I always forget how great middle grade books are- my son has been out of that age range for quite a while and my daughter isn’t ready for most of those books in terms of interest (reading ability, yes; interest, ehhhhhh), so I don’t spend a ton of time in that section quite yet. But I learned about this book on a list of multicultural middle grade books, and after reading that it was about a Syrian girl who leaves her home to live in the US, onto my TBR it went. (And look at that gorgeous cover!)

Jude has lived in Syria all her life with her parents and older brother. She’s always loved American things, right along with her best friend, but when life starts getting complicated in her home country, she travels with her pregnant mother to live in Cincinnati with an uncle and his family, leaving her father and her missing brother behind. Life in America is complicated. Jude, who used to be the best at English in her school in Syria, is now struggling to understand both the language and the culture around her. No one seems to want to try to understand her. She misses her father, she’s worried about her brother and her best friend (who isn’t answering her letters), and her cousin Sarah seems to hate her.

Bit by bit, Jude pulls together a life for herself in America. Her English improves; she makes friends in her ESOL class, a Muslim friend, and a friend from her math class; she works up the courage to try out for the school play. When anti-Muslim sentiments start up in her town, it’s not what Jude had hoped for in her new life, but she responds with courage and dignity, just as she takes on the rest of her journey.

Written in verse, Other Words for Home is a look at a young girl tasked with starting over under difficult circumstances, how she rallies, and how the people around her make her new life both easier and more difficult. There are plenty of helpers, but there are plenty of people- including adults- who try to bring her down.

This is a quick read, but it’s a great one. It would make an utterly fabulous read for a mother-daughter book club (especially if you’re looking for books that touch on immigration and/or refugees, the crises in Syria, and Muslim girls. Heads up for a few mentions of menstruation, a few mentions of bombings, and several instances of anti-Muslim behavior- all of which are things that kids in this target reader age are either likely to be discussing or need to discuss with adults, but sometimes parents need a little bit of time to think and prep for how they want to approach these subjects).

Jude is a delight of a character, strong and determined and an excellent role model (not necessary for a character, but it’s nice when you come across one). She works hard to understand the whys of her life: why are she and her mother moving to the US; why is her father staying behind; why does her brother feel the need to fight; why are people treating her this way in America (not sure there’s really an answer for that, to be honest). She works hard at everything she does, even when it’s difficult, and she never stops trying, even when she’s pretty sure she’ll fail. A new immigrant, still learning the language, trying out for a school play? RESPECT. I didn’t even have enough courage to try out for my school plays when I’ve lived here my whole life. I would have been in utter awe of Jude when I was young. I wish I’d known girls like her. Maybe I did and didn’t even know it.

Super great read, this one. I always enjoy a good novel in verse, but the subject matter and Jude as a narrator really hit it home for me.

Visit Jasmine Warga’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction

Book Review: The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

Stephanie1 Comment

Some books just sit on your TBR for ages for no particular reason; The Guest Book by Sarah Blake (Flatiron Books, 2019) was one of them. My library only had an ebook version of it, and I tend to use my kindle in fits and streaks. I’ll read a TON of kindle books, then not touch it again for another six months. (I checked out a library ebook today, thinking it was a kindle- my Libby account is supposed to only check out kindle books- but it turned out not to be, and now I’m waiting for my ancient iPad to charge so I can read it on there, sigh.) But I reorganized my paper TBR list so it’s less messy and fresh and clean, with all the books I’ve already read and crossed out taken off, and all the ebooks I had on there were reeeeeeeeeeally bothering me, so I decided to start tackling them. The Guest List was the first available book.

The Guest List tells the story of three generations of the Milton family, East Coast blue bloods who helped the US out of the Great Depression…but by what means, exactly? Kitty and Ogden Milton’s early years are marred by tragedy; this tragedy echoes into the future and has serious consequences for other people, ones that Kitty is loath to admit until she finds the perfect dumping ground for her secrets. Joan, her daughter, burdened with epilepsy, has an entire life unknowingly affected by said tragedy, and it isn’t until Evie, Kitty’s granddaughter, is a middle-aged adult that all the secrets come to light when she and her cousins are trying to figure out how to handle the family island.

Yes, family island. Ogden and Kitty had bought an island off the coast of Maine in the wake of their tragedy. This island will become a source of joy and healing, but almost immediately a source of remembering of things Kitty would rather forget, things that paint her in a way she would rather not see herself. For Joan, it will shape the course of her life; for Evelyn, it is her family, but it also reveals uncomfortable truths about what her family is and has always been, both good and bad, because people are complicated and can be multiple things at once.

This is one of those books where the setting is as much of a character as the people. Crockett’s Island becomes monolithic, looming over everyone in a variety of ways. If you’re a reader who really enjoys stories with a strong sense of place (or you’ve just always wanted to inhabit a world where people are rich enough to own their own islands), this would be a great choice for you.

Content warning for the accidental death of a child shortly into the book, and some post-World War II-era antisemitism; if you’re not up for reading these things at this time, put it away and find something that better suits your needs at this time. Be kind to yourself. Life is tough enough already.

Kitty is a complex character. She’s definitely a product of her time and class (class is a huge factor in this book), and most of the time I massively disliked her. She has a few redeeming qualities, and then she comes around and opens her mouth and ruins it all. Joan is more sympathetic, to a point, and therefore more tolerable to read. Evie is written in the modern era and has more progressive and acceptable attitudes, and I enjoyed her storyline most of all (although I did enjoy Joan’s as well; there were a few things at the end that soured it for me).

There are other characters- Reg and Len- that really made the story tolerable for me. They added a touch of reality that you just don’t get when the story solely focuses on a family that owns a freaking island, and they end up providing the key as to the hows and whys the island ownership came to be in the first place. Without them, Evelyn may never have known, and that made this all the more interesting. What this book ends up being is a deep look at the attitudes towards race and religion that shaped the past and the ways they’re still shaping the present, and it asks how we plan to move forward from that. There’s a lot going on in this book, which is, again, more literary than I usually go.

Not my favoritest (TOTALLY A WORD) of books, and it solidified my resolve to never turn into the kind of person that the original Miltons were, but it was an interesting read that asks a lot of important questions, which I love.

Visit Sarah Blake’s website here.

nonfiction

Book Review: Choosing Judaism: 36 Stories by Bradley Caro Cook and Diana Phillips

Stephanie1 Comment

A few weeks ago, when my article on Alma came out, I was contacted via Instagram by Stacey Smith, who made me aware of a new book on conversion to Judaism. Of course this delighted and intrigued me, and I said I’d be more than happy to read and review it. A message from Bradley Caro Cook soon appeared in my blog email, and within a few days, I was happily swinging on my back yard porch swing, reading Choosing Judaism: 36 Stories by Bradley Caro Cook and Diana Phillips (Kindle Edition, 2020). In Judaism, a convert is viewed as no different from a born Jew, but we do have certain things in common and experiences that are unique to our group, so it’s always comforting to read stories of people who have been through this process, who have experienced some of the same things I have, and who have come out Jewish on the other side. Reading the stories in this book was like receiving a warm hug from a good friend.

Choosing Judaism is a collection of stories by 36 different authors (some of whom I was happy to see live not that far from me!). Most are prose, written in essay form, but there are a few poems in there to mix things up. Each explains their discomfort with the religion they were born into (hellooooooooooooo, feeling like you’re the only one in the pews just. not. getting. it!), their questioning (and how that questioning wasn’t often acceptable to whatever branch of Christianity they previously belonged), what initially drew them to Judaism, and the process of conversion, which- as was true for me- often stretches on many years. Some authors are newly converted; others have been living Jewish lives for many years, including raising Jewish children who are now Jewish adults themselves.

These are truly beautiful, intriguing stories that will be intimately familiar to you if you’ve ever felt drawn to Judaism or have considered or are in any stage of conversion. You’ll recognize yourself in the questioning, in the arguments with family, in the wonder of realizing that there’s a you-shaped space in this beautiful and ancient tradition. Conversion isn’t a decision anyone makes lightly, and this book illustrates that over and over again. From those who were introduced to Judaism by a romantic partner but found it met their needs regardless, to those who came in on their own, from secular Jews to Orthodox, from Jews by Choice who make their homes in the deep South to those who have made aliyah and now live in Israel, straight people and gay people, this is an inclusive book of stories that will touch the heart of anyone who has been touched by conversion to Judaism.

There’s no shying away from the reality of conversion in these stories, either. The authors are honest about the difficulties, from struggles with family, to not being moved by the mikvah (the Jewish ritual immersion bath; immersing in the mikvah is a part of halachic conversion. I’d heard so many people talk about how they didn’t find it moving that I was actually surprised that I got choked up when I was saying the blessings during my immersion!), to the vast amounts of work that go into a conversion (so much reading! Yay!), to the changes Judaism affected on their during-and-post-conversion lives, I found myself nodding along and being able to relate to so much as I rocked back and forth on my swing and read.

This is a lovely, VERY current collection of stories about what conversion to Judaism looks like- the process (both before and after contacting a rabbi, because so often, those of us who are interested are intimidated and too shy to approach our local synagogues and put it off for years *blushes*), the struggles, the beauty, the joy, and the often long and winding road that leads to the place where we converts truly belong. I’m still not able to connect much with my synagogue community, since we’re still maintaining a high level of pandemic precaution due to our young child (come on, vaccines for kids!), so reading this felt like a respite from all of that, a moment of connection with community, with people who truly understand. If you’re in the process of conversion, wondering what it looks like, a little Jew-curious yourself, or you’re trying to understand a convert in your life, this is a fabulous collection of writing that will help you to connect, to understand, and to feel seen and heard.

Huge thanks to Brad and Stacey for offering me a copy of this book. Reading it was an absolute delight!

nonfiction

Book Review: Antisemitism: Here and Now by Deborah E. Lipstadt

Stephanie4 Comments

I believe I learned about Antisemitism: Here and Now by Deborah E. Lipstadt (Schocken Books Inc, 2019) while combing through the library’s digital card catalog for Jewish-related books at one point (remember actual, physical card catalogs? I miss those things. In what may be my nerdiest story yet, I actually have a scar on my left hand from when I was 12 and the H drawer of the card catalog fell out of its place and the metal parts of the underside of the drawer sliced my finger). It’s a topic I’ve encountered before plenty of times in my reading, but this was a recent publication, and I knew I needed to read it. I’m so glad I did.

Antisemitism is a lot like racism, in that it’s everywhere. It goes far deeper than Nazis and concentration camps, and there are a lot of ways to be antisemitic (if you’re unsure of exactly what that means or can’t think of more than one or two, this is likely something you should read). Structuring her book as a conversation over email with a student and a colleague, Deborah Lipstadt, a professor and historian, discusses antisemitism: what it is, what it looks like in its many forms, how to respond to it as a Jew and a Gentile, how to process feelings about it. She clarifies a lot of information on the topic, including a discussion on people who may not necessarily be antisemitic themselves but who enable those who are (a massive problem these days, unfortunately, and again, if you can’t think of any examples of this, you’re the target audience for this book, because it’ll open your eyes). The section of Jeremy Corbyn and the antisemitism of the Labour Party disturbed me deeply- I knew things weren’t great, but reading all the examples Ms. Lipstadt laid out helped me to understand how big the problem is there. I don’t know too much about British politics, so I really found this helpful in understanding what has been happening there.

This is not and should not be a comfortable read. Go into this prepared to learn, to recognize antisemitic statements and actions in yourself, in your friends and family, in your favorite politicians (yes, on both sides, and she doesn’t shy away from that unfortunate truth. Both sides absolutely do have an antisemitism problem), in the media you consume, and be prepared to be honest with yourself and change your ways, or call out antisemitism in those around you (they won’t like that. Big deal; do it anyway). Creating a better, safer world is everyone’s responsibility, yours included, and books like this are an important resource in doing just that.

I will say that while this is a deeply serious subject and one that isn’t necessarily pleasant to read about, the tone of this book is kept as light as possible, making it, while not the easiest of reads, a deeply engaging one. I flew through this book, always looking forward to the next chapter and appreciating the education on every page. It’s a book I wish I could get everyone I know to read; it’s that important. If you know and love Jewish people (or even just know, to be honest- and if you’re reading this, you know me! Hi!), if you were horrified by the tiki torch-waving alt-right marching through Charlottesville while screaming antisemitic garbage a few years ago, if you’ve read stories about the uptick in antisemitic events (including the stabbing of a rabbi in Boston last week), and especially if you fit into none of these categories- this is the education you need to be a good friend, a good citizen, and a good ally.

Visit Deborah E. Lipstadt’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini

Stephanie3 Comments

It’s no great secret that women have been left out of a lot, if not most scientific research in the past, from behavioral studies to medicine- because why bother? They’re totally basically the same as men, right? Except wrong, and that has had serious, often deadly, consequences for women all around the world. I’ve read a few books on this topic in the past few years; Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong- and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini (Beacon Press, 2017) was the latest on my list. It’s a short book; what’s it’s not short on is science and information that’ll make you think.

For most of recorded scientific history, women have been left out of research and studies. There was no need to study them, (male) scientists thought, and the reasons were many: there was no difference between men and women, scientifically. Women could get pregnant and medications might harm the developing fetus, so better to leave them out and just assume the medication worked on them in the exact same way it did men (uh…sorry ‘bout that, dead women). Science already knew how women were different than men: they were passive, subservient, incapable of understanding difficult scientific concepts like men, and less intelligent, with their tinier lady brains…if you’re not screaming by now, check your pulse.

Angela Saini shines a light on the myriad ways that science has ignored women (and not just human women! Why bother studying the females in ANY species, amirite?!!??? *screams again*), and the new research- oftentimes spearheaded by the women who are beginning to engage in research in larger numbers than ever before. This new research isn’t without its detractors, often men who still cling to the juvenile idea that women are just weak, limp creatures incapable of engaging in more than cleaning and child raising and cooing over big strong men, but it’s shoving science in a direction that it should have gone ages ago.

I enjoyed this, but it’s pretty deeply scientific and not the most casual of reads- to be honest, it often read like listening to my biologist husband speak (which isn’t a bad thing!). It was a little bit of a slow read for me, both because I was busy getting stuff done around the house and because I kind of wanted to digest all the information thrown at me. While I knew from other reading that women have long been left out of medical trials and health-based research, I hadn’t really known that scientists hadn’t bothered studying the behavior of female chimpanzees, bonobos, even female birds were left out of the research for a puzzlingly long time, simply because scientists assumed, “Oh, they’re just out there mothering. They’re built for mothering, they just want one single mate to be strong providers with strong genes for their babies, and they’re no more complicated than that.” Shockingly, it turns out that lumping all female creatures into one ladyparts-means-THIS pile is incorrect (and you’re going to be so grossed out by how many dudes are offended by the fact that they got this wrong, and who straight-up seem to scoff at Ms. Saini for questioning them on this). There’s a lot on animal research in the second half of the book, which didn’t interest me quite as much as the medical research bits, but I’m glad I read it, so that I better understand the depths to which half the population has been ignored in all facets of science.

Interesting book, though infuriating to read in terms of subject and how arrogant male scientists have been throughout history.

Visit Angela Saini’s website here.

nonfiction

Book Review: Shunned: How I Lost My Religion and Found Myself by Linda A. Curtis

Stephanie2 Comments

Pretty sure I learned about Shunned: How I Lost My Religon and Found Myself by Linda A. Curtis (She Writes Press, 2018) from a list of books about people leaving various religious groups and sects (Goodreads actually has a bunch of these lists! The number of boxes that say READ for me on these lists is almost a little embarrassing…). It can be a little tricky reading about Jehovah’s Witnesses. So many of the memoirs make its adherents’ lives seem so bleak, what with the no holiday or birthday celebrations. Quite a few of the memoir authors’ lives as children lacked any kind of joy, just slogging through life from meeting to door knocking to school, lather, rinse, repeat. Shunned wasn’t quite that heavy, fortunately.

Linda Curtis grew up a devout Jehovah’s Witness, beginning to knock on doors to bring others into the fold when she was just nine years old. Unable to participate in classroom celebrations with her friends or any of the regular teenage dating rituals in high school, she forgoes college (why bother, when Armageddon is surely around the corner?) and works part-time while full-time knocking on doors, and then marries young to a man about whom she already has serious doubts before the wedding. Career-wise, things take off for her; Linda begins to realize all that she’s capable of, all that she’s good at. When she meets a co-worker, one she likes and respects, on the other side of a door one afternoon, she hears what her practiced Witness speech must sound like to his ears for the very first time, and she begins to question a religion that would so willingly throw such a nice guy away.

The questions and doubts fly fast and furious after this, and before long, Linda has divorced her husband, gone inactive in the church, and moved away. Divorce is unacceptable to the Witnesses, however, and she and her husband are still considered married to them- he’s not allowed to date again unless she admits to finding someone else, thus committing what the church considers adultery (legal divorce doesn’t matter to them). And when she does, that’s grounds for her family to shun her. Linda understands that this is coming and accepts this as a consequence of living an honest life. It’s painful and difficult to create an entirely new life on her own, but she does, one that is beautiful and authentic, though the wounds from her family never truly heal.

This is a well-written memoir. I didn’t necessarily gain any new insights into the JW religion or culture, but it was an interesting look at what a Witness family looked like. (Her father didn’t join until Linda was mostly on the way out, which added an interesting perspective.) I can’t say this endeared me at all to the Jehovah’s Witness sect, though- I understand having faith and it being deeply important to your life. I don’t understand it taking precedence over any kind of a relationship with one’s children. I’m deeply committed to my Judaism, but my kids are free to be whatever it is they need to be, whatever it is they feel is right for them and their outlook on the world. I cannot imagine looking at them and saying, “If you don’t believe exactly like me, I don’t want you in my life.” I’m actually really appalled that there are parents out there who do that, in any group. (That’s not to say I don’t understand why some families cut off contact with each other- it happens; not all relationships are successful or healthy, and sometimes you need to put some distance between each other when things get toxic. This, however, I feel is in an entirely different category, and it breaks my heart that kids are left high and dry because of religious beliefs, or lack thereof.)

It impressed me how Linda didn’t maintain a sense of bitterness or anger at her family (or if she did, it didn’t come through in her writing). I don’t know that I could have been so kind- I feel like if my parents no longer wanted to talk to me, I’d just shrug and be like, “For that? Wow, your loss, then,” and wouldn’t necessarily be open to them reaching out in any capacity. Because if I’m not good enough for you to keep around in your daily life, why would you expect me to come running for…anything? Maybe that’s just me, but I couldn’t live holding out hope that maybe, maybe one day my family would beg me to come crawling back. Nah. If you don’t want me around, that’s fine. Too bad for you, but I’m staying gone, then. I’m curious as to what makes Linda as gracious and forgiving as she was with her family during the brief respite she got upon returning home for her grandmother’s death. I wouldn’t have been so forgiving. (I was also seriously impressed at her career trajectory. She made a place for herself in the finance world with no secondary education and reached seriously impressive levels of success. GO LINDA!)

This book did seem to drag a bit at the end, but otherwise, it’s an enjoyable read and a look at what happens when parents decide that allegiance to a religious group, or religious ideals, trumps any relationship with their children. It’s depressing at times, but ultimately, it’s more of an inspiration, of having the courage to find the path in life that’s authentic to who you are.

Visit Linda A. Curtis’s website here.

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: June 2021

Stephanie2 Comments

Welcome to July! June here started off dry, like drought-style dry, and now we’re all peering out between the raindrop for the Ark…It’s rained and rained and rained and rained. Even in normal years, this would have me going a little nuts, but being stuck in the house with a kiddo too young to be vaccinated? OY. Not to mention, my pain hasn’t gotten any better this month. I’ve had some really nasty days, and sitting is painful again (SERIOUSLY. SITTING. WTF). But I’m taking measures to work on this, and I had some really great things happen this month as well, which I’ll talk about below.

It’s also been a pretty good month for reading! As I expected throughout the winter, I’ve been doing a lot of reading out on my swing- uh, not during the rain, unfortunately, but when it’s dry out, it makes for a lovely reading spot. A pillow, a sheet thrown over the canopy to block out any stray retina-burning sunlight, a cup of lemonade, and I’m set for as long as my daughter is otherwise occupied and content for me to read. It’s amazing, and I’m already sad that the summer won’t last forever. I love reading on my swing.

Anyway, let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in June 2021

1. The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar

2. Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

3. Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

4. 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Macadam

5. How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden

6. A Better Man: A (Mostly) Serious Letter to My Son by Michael Ian Black

7. Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun

8. The Book of V by Anna Solomon

9. Hand Made: The Modern Woman’s Guide to Made-from-Scratch Living by Melissa K. Norris

10. In the House of the Serpent Handler: A Story of Faith and Fleeting Fame in the Age of Social Media by Julia C. Duin

11. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

12. God Was Not in the Fire: The Search for a Spiritual Judaism by Daniel Gordis (no review)

13. Aleph Isn’t Tough: An Introduction to Hebrew for Adults by Linda Motzkin (my second time through this book; I needed the review)

14. Well Met by Jen DeLuca

15. Well Played by Jen DeLuca

16. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

17. Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age by Ayala Fader

18. Shunned: How I Lost My Religion and Found Myself by Linda A. Curtis

(My apologies; WordPress is not allowing me to link to those last books. I’ve had a heck of a time getting this post up at ALL.)

That’s some pretty decent reading! Seven fiction, eleven nonfiction. Sixteen from my TBR; two rereads (both of which were from my own shelves). Aleph Isn’t Tough is an amazing book if you’re wanting to learn to read Hebrew, for whatever reason. I had originally gone through it the first time right before the pandemic hit, before I had started attending virtual services at my synagogue. It worked well, though I was a bit iffy on a few of the letters and vowels introduced at the very end of the book, so I wanted to go through it again, after I formally converted and have over a years’ worth of learning various prayers and parts of the Shabbat service. MUCH better (and faster!) this time around! I could read everything from the beginning (instead of just picking out bits like the text instructs you to), I recognized the vast majority of prayers and passages and could even sing some of them as I read them, it was a lot more fun this time around!

Reading Challenge Updates

No reading challenges going on here right now.

State of the Goodreads TBR

So. 177 last month, and after reading SIXTEEN BOOKS from my TBR, it now stands at…171 books?!?!? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??? *lolsob* Can people just STOP writing such interesting books so I can tame this beast for a little bit? PLEASE????

Books I Acquired in June 2021

A quick trip to the thrift store yielded a super comfy long black skirt, and two books for me: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, which, while not on my TBR, I’ve wanted to read for a while, and Judaism (Great Religions of Modern Man #6) by Arthur Hertzberg. They’re now sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to get to them. 😊

Bookish Things I Did in June 2021

I do have one bookish thing I did- but I’ll discuss that below. 😉

Current Podcast Love

I’m still just listening to BBC Radio on my phone as I fall asleep. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up with podcasts for a bit; my tablet is…nine years old now? Old enough that it’s not downloading app updates, so a lot of my apps are unusable anymore. And as for my phone, it’s also five years old, and its memory is so small that the very small handful of apps I have on there (most of which I NEED to run my daily life) are causing the memory to run out, so I can’t get anything new there either. ☹

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

On hold until life goes back to normal.

Real Life Stuff

SO.

In some ways, this month was same old, same old. Nasty chronic pain (but I’m trying to desensitize my brain and overworked central nervous system by kind of pushing my boundaries a little bit. Exposure therapy of a sorts). Our family is still isolated like it’s March of 2020. Lots of 90+ degree days that made being outside in any context fairly disgusting and miserable even if you were adequately hydrated. (Is there such a thing when it’s that hot? My middle-aged body says no…) And then…

For one, I started doing volunteer work for The Vashti Initiative. This is an organization that helps provide survivors of religious abuse with support and the resources and information necessary to build a life outside of their former communities. (SUPER right up my alley!) Right now, I’m helping to compile lists of resources for my state, including things like food pantries (what I’m working on currently), organizations that assist with mental health and the needs of survivors of abuse, things like that. (If you’re part of a religious or civic organization that runs a food pantry, be VERY CLEAR on your website about your phone number, address, and hours where people can get food from you- first off, HAVE a website. PLEASE. Throw up a free Facebook account. A Blogger or WordPress site. ANYTHING. I am BEGGING you. Make it easy for people to find you. And for God’s sake, don’t talk down to the people who need your services. These are human beings, and they deserve food without judgment or feeling like they’re a project to you. I’ve looked at over 250 pantry sites at this point and I’ve been appalled a LOT of the time.) I’m super, super happy to be helping Vashti out, and if you’re looking for a great place to volunteer, especially right now (and/or because your body sucks and moving around and lifting things is difficult!), Vashti is all virtual! 😊 I’ve long thought that there was a massive need for this kind of service, and I knew I wanted to help as soon as I learned about this place.

And then this happened

Two thousand days of Norwegian. 😊 It’s a fun language, and it comes in handy more often than you might expect. Part of that is because I make opportunities to use it, but I’ve also run into it unexpectedly out in the wild- the occasional news article someone else posts, on TV, IKEA (which is technically Swedish, but there’s about 80%-ish overlap between Norwegian and Swedish- same for Danish. It all just looks like it’s spelled wrong to me, because the spelling between the languages varies wildly, and the pronunciations are different, but I can read both of them enough to get by), even an overheard conversation at a Scandinavian festival between a man and his mother a few years ago (he was asking about the food she was eating). Plus Norwegian has some fun pop music, and heck, announcing you’re at least somewhat proficient in Norwegian is definitely a conversation starter!

And…

Thirdly…

*drumroll, please*

I got my writing published!!!

It’s nothing huge, but the online Jewish feminist magazine Alma accepted and published a piece I wrote, which they titled The Best Books for Exploring Conversion to Judaism. (Hey, write what you know, amirite?) It originally started off as more of an essay, and I rewrote and reformatted it upon request to focus more heavily on conversion, and voilà! Publication. I’ve never been published before, so this was a pretty big deal- I just wanted to write about some books that I loved and that had influenced me, and I was so pleased that this worked out. And then…

This happened.

And this happened.

And this happened.

I never, ever expected the authors of these books I loved so very much to see this article, much less thank me for it. (In fact, I had one sleepless night before the article came out, worrying that I was wrong about everything and people would basically storm my social media with metaphorical torches and pitchforks. Anxiety is fun…) I cried, y’all. I’ve been a homemaker for most of my adult life, where 99.9% of the response to my completing something is that there’s more work for me to do, or someone complains, or a kid blows out a diaper or breaks something or has to be driven somewhere (all the while, more work piles up at home, because the cat is likely barfing on something while I’m out, and then someone else is upset because I wasn’t there to work on something else…). Having people say, “Hey, thanks, this thing you did was great!” just…it felt really, really good. 😊

So that was my June. Filled with the regular downs (CAN YOU NOT, PANDEMIC?!?!??), and some really great ups, and a lot of awesome books.

I have a virtual library program about Muslims at the end of July, but that’s literally all that’s on my calendar right now! Crossing my fingers for another month of great reading.

Stay safe, friends. There’s a lot of yuck going around right now- nasty weather (we’ve had tornados rip through my area, though not my town), intense heat, wildfires, the scary Delta variants that worry me greatly, political and civil unrest around the world… Be the good neighbor you want to see in the world. It won’t get any better unless we all work together for it.

Sending all of you love, and wishing you a beautiful July.

nonfiction

Book Review: Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age by Ayala Fader

Stephanie2 Comments

I…can’t actually remember where I learned about Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age by Ayala Fader (Princeton University Press, 2020). Which is weird, because the book is pretty new, but it was also released in 2020, and that year just kind of ate my brain as a whole. It’s gotten a *little* better since the thick of the pandemic, but my brain is definitely not the same as it was before (and, uh, thanks to a daughter who woke me up 4-6 times per night for eighteen months straight, it had plenty of issues pre-pandemic as well *twitch*). Anyway, as soon as I learned about this brand-new book that examined Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Jews who are questioning their faith and/or way of life, with the new influence of the internet aiding their search for answers and human connection, onto my TBR it went.

Ayala Fader is a professor of anthropology, and in her latest work, she spends time- a lot of it- in many of New York’s Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, following those whom she calls double-lifers: people who have come to doubt the truth of what they’ve been taught, but who, for a variety of reasons, are still living in said communities. She follows their struggles, their flirtations with the outside world, the ways they violate the commandments and social mores they’ve been taught to keep, how the internet aids their search and connects them to other double-lifers, and what their community is doing to try, not only to curtail internet usage among their followers, but to bring back those who doubt into the fold.

There are numerous reasons why doubters remain in the community- social, financial, emotional, logistical. Leaving may mean cutting all contact off with not only your family, friends, and spouse, but your children as well. Some doubters have yet to fully master English (though surreptitious internet usage is helping to change this). Some have few skills useful outside the community. Women, in particular, struggle to connect with other doubters, since oftentimes their internet access is solely at the behest of their husbands, and their extra responsibilities at home keep them from connecting frequently with other female doubters. Throughout all of this is a discussion of language, of how doubters use it, which language they use, how their gender affects which language they use and how they use it, and what the internet has done for language usage among the Ultra-Orthodox.

Whew. This is a hard-hitting ethnography, written in a more academic style but that’s still accessible to the interested lay reader. It’s likely not meant as an introduction to the Ultra-Orthodox; while Ms. Fader defines all Yiddish and Hebrew terms and explains their usage, there’s definitely a certain level of assumed knowledge about these communities going into the book. There are plenty of great memoirs out there by former members of Ultra-Orthodox communities; I highly suggest picking a few of those up to understand the communities on a more personal level before jumping into this more heavily academic work.

That’s not to say that this isn’t excellent and informative. Ms. Fader gets to know her subjects and a few of their children, showing how deeply complicated it is for parents to live a double life in a community that their children are going to spend their lives. How do they encourage their children to think for themselves, how do they prepare them to create a life with more choices, when almost every last bit of their lives is dictated by the rules, mores, and standards of the communities in which they live? The final section expands on this, though not enough; I wished she had written more, though honestly, there’s likely enough there to fill an entirely new book.

I really enjoyed this, as it’s right up my alley. If you’re deeply interested in the subject matter and don’t mind a more academic style (as opposed to the more personal styles of a memoir or a lighter ethnographical examination), it’s likely something you’ll enjoy as well.

Visit Ayala Fader’s page at Fordham University (and sigh in disappointment with me that I cannot take every single one of her classes).

Follow her on Twitter here.