Tag: Jewish

fiction · historical fiction

Book Review: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

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I needed a book with Girl in the title for the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, and since none of the books from my TBR fit, I went searching. It didn’t take long before I came across The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant (Scribner, 2014), and that was an easy choice. I love Anita Diamant. I love her fiction, I love her nonfiction, I’m a huge fan. So much so that I was almost frightened to start this book, because what if I didn’t like it? Cautiously, I opened the cover, turned a few pages to the first chapter, started reading…and hilariously, I was hooked within the first two paragraphs. Unsurprisingly, I ended up loving this book.

Told in the style of an interview with her granddaughter, The Boston Girl tells the story of the life of Addie Baum, a Jewish woman whose life spanned the course of the 20th century. Her parents are poor and don’t quite understand this new country that they’ve fled to; her sisters are distant, and forming relationships with them in such a volatile household is nearly impossible. But Addie scrapes together a life for herself, using the many resources around her, like the Settlement House and its courses and support groups, to turn herself into a real Boston Girl.

Growing up as the impoverished daughter of immigrant parents. World War I and its devastation. Unexpected pregnancy in a dangerous time. A prescient retelling of the terror of the Spanish flu pandemic. Life, death, love, struggle, and triumph. It’s all here in this book, where Addie Baum blossoms from a naïve young girl to a woman surrounded by love, family, friends, and the incredible life she’s built for herself. 

This book is fabulous historical fiction that covers so many topics that are still relevant today. I think I held my breath through all of the pages that were set during the Spanish flu pandemic; that part was particularly well-written and far too familiar, so much so that I flipped back to the copyright page and was a little surprised to find this was published in 2014. Of course it’s part of Addie’s timeline, but I think that part of the story has taken on far more meaning since the book’s initial publication date. 

There are some fraught moments, moments of death, sexual assault and harassment, a soldier’s PTSD, and what we recognize today as emotional abuse by a parent. But there’s also joy, of friendship, of carving out a career path, of falling in love for the first time. This is truly a well-crafted story that spans a century of incredible change, and Ms. Diamant manages to cover just enough history without bogging down the reader with tiny details or the more complicated parts of history. This is character-driven with a heavy influence by the outside events of history, and I truly loved it. 

Visit Anita Diamant’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

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fiction · YA

Book Review: The Return by Sonia Levitin

Stephanie1 Comment

Next up on the 2023 Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book set in the decade you were born! I was born in 1980, and luckily, on my TBR was The Return by Sonia Levitin (Fawcett Juniper, 1988), set in the 1980’s. It’s historical fiction (wait, does that mean I’m historical, at this age???), along with being Jewish fiction and young adult. It hadn’t been sitting on my TBR for too long, but I was glad to get to it, because it covered a topic I knew little about.

Desta lives in Ethiopia, a member of Beta Israel, a persecuted group of Jews who are struggling to survive. Her parents are both gone, and she and her brother and sister live with their aunt and uncle. Food is scarce; Desta isn’t allowed the education she truly longs for; the locals treat Beta Israel with contempt at best. Life is difficult, but there’s still joy to be found. Rumors are swirling that there are ways to leave, though leaving Ethiopia is forbidden for Beta Israel, and when white Jews come from America to speak with Desta’s group, her brother begins making plans to escape to Jerusalem. When their hand is forced, she and her brother grab their little sister and start out on a dangerous journey to a land they’ve only ever dreamed of.

Phew. This is a tense book, but I deeply appreciated the glimpse it gave me into the lives of Ethiopian Jews before and after making the dangerous trek to Israel. I knew the briefest bits of their story, mostly about the airlifts that rescued them, but I didn’t know the details, and this story really helped fill in some of the blanks, especially about the difficult conditions they lived under in Ethiopia and why they were so difficult. 

It’s interesting how much writing styles have changed in YA since this was published. I feel like this very much would’ve fit the style that was prevalent when I was a tween (just after this was published), but it’s so different from what’s new today. (Not a criticism, just an observation. Of course styles change, but every so often, I’m reminded how far YA has come!) I’m glad I got to this so quickly; I’m always thrilled to expand my Jewish knowledge, so this was a really interesting read for me.

Visit Sonia Levitin’s website here.

fiction

Book Review: House on Endless Waters by Emuna Elon

Stephanie1 Comment

I don’t read a lot of literary fiction. I learned fairly early on in my adult life that I don’t necessarily connect with the characters well, and in general, the genre is a little too slow-paced for my tastes. But someone from a Jewish books group on Facebook recommended House on Endless Waters by Emuna Elon (Atria Books, 2020), and it sounded fascinating. I’ve also had good experiences with some Jewish literary fiction, so I decided to give this one a try – and it fit a category for the 2023 Popsugar Reading Challenge of a historical fiction book. Double win!

On a reluctant visit to his birthplace of Amsterdam, Israeli author Yoel Blum discovers familiar faces in a video at the local Jewish museum: his mother, his sister, and…a baby who isn’t him. A return trip to Amsterdam, this time without his wife but with a plan to stay much longer, sets him on the path to figuring out the mystery of that video so he can both understand and also base his next novel on it.

The story of Yoel’s past unfolds slowly, the story running parallel to his own, occasionally in the same paragraph (which sounds like it would be confusing, but it’s really not. It works well, in a way I found surprising for me, since literary fiction usually isn’t my jam). The struggle of his parents to adapt to the quickly changing situation in both Europe as a whole and Amsterdam, where everything was supposed to be safe; the increasing dangers; the food shortages; the disappearance of his father; the arguments with friends and neighbors; the disappearances of so many people around them, all terrifying and horrible. Yoel’s knowledge increases bit by bit as he gets to know the city of his birth, and he develops a new understanding of not only his childhood, but his relationship with his mother, his wife, and even his grandchildren as the truth of his path unfolds. 

This worked really, really well for me. It’s not entirely clear as to what parts of the 1940’s-narrative are fiction and what are based on what Yoel is learning about his past, but the story comes together almost seamlessly, blending expertly with Yoel’s present fact-finding discovery trip. It’s tense, to be sure, and there’s a mystery that isn’t too difficult to figure out, but it’s emotional and devastating all the same. Yoel’s growth as a writer, a husband, a parent, and grandparent is gentle over the course of the novel, culminating in some tender scenes at the end of the book, leaving me wishing I could stick around and see more of not only how his life changes upon his return to Israel, but how this new book of his is received by his fans.

I’m really glad I took the chance on this book. I’ve gotten such great suggestions from my Jewish book group, and this was no exception. 

Follow Emuna Elon on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind by Julie Metz

Stephanie2 Comments

The Holocaust is such a complicated subject, and it’s no wonder that so many children of survivors go on to write their own memoirs, because that kind of trauma is something that’s passed on, that reaches forward through the generations. I’ve read quite a few of these memoirs so far, and I’m sure I’ll read more, but my feeling of responsibility to read them all is how Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind by Julie Metz (Atria Books, 2021) ended up on my TBR. 

Julie Metz’s mother, Eve, rarely talked about her childhood experiences in Vienna during World War II, and Julie never felt as though she could ask. When her mother died, discoveries among her possessions led Julie to begin searching for the past her mother kept buried away, and this search would take her across countries and continents.

From Vienna to Italy, emailing, calling, and video chatting with people across the US, Europe, and Israel, Ms. Metz began piecing together the story of her mother’s life: daughter of a successful businessman whose survival came thanks to the necessity of the products his factory created and coincidentally, due to his love of hiking; sister to two brothers sent away to England early on, before things got too complicated in Vienna. She tracks the changes that came to Vienna and to her mother’s family and friends, the struggles they had in day-to-day life, the difficulties surviving (and despite those difficulties, how they were shielded from the worst of the suffering), and their escape to America via a trip through Italy, and the ship that brought them across the ocean.

Ms. Metz’s search is one of obvious dedication, and I’m sure it was emotional to visit all the places her mother lived and that were stolen from her and her family. I did feel like from time to time, the book dragged a little, but the overarching goal of the author and the tense journey of her family members out of war-torn Europe kept me turning pages. It’s a story that illustrates that even survival leaves scars and pain that echo through the generations. 

Visit Julie Metz’s website here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum

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Woohoo, Jewish books! Always looking to add them to my list, and I was super excited to learn about the existence of The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum (Philomel Books, 2022). There aren’t a ton of YA books set in an Orthodox community (I do manage to find some from time to time!), so this one particularly excited me.

Yehuda ‘Hoodie’ Rosen’s Orthodox community recently moved from its mostly-Jewish area to a smaller, non-Jewish area, and everyone is feeling the strain of being the new folks in town who don’t fit in (no thanks to the longtime residents who don’t exactly roll out the welcome mat). He’s a bit of a slacker at school, kind of laid-back, but things start to change in his life when he meets Anna-Marie, the daughter of the mayor. Hoodie starts to fall for her, despite her not being Jewish (really, he shouldn’t be talking to her at all, as per community norms…), and when his family finds out, Hoodie is in t.r.o.u.b.l.e.

But things aren’t going well for his community. There’s antisemitic graffiti. Nasty comments. Violence. Hoodie’s just trying to reach out, form some bonds, make things better, right? It doesn’t much matter; Hoodie’s definitely on the outs for spending time with not just an outsider, but a girl. And then the shooting happens.

This is a fabulous look into a world most of us don’t get to see. If you’re not Jewish, there may be a term or a concept here and there that’s unfamiliar; in that case, Google is your friend (understanding these things really does add depth to the story, and hey, learning is always good, so don’t miss out! And feel free to ask me in the comments if you read this and need help with anything. I’m always happy to help!). Hoodie’s world may seem a little small, but it’s really not; it’s rich with family, friends, community, learning. It may not always be the best fit for everyone, and some people may struggle a bit (and this is illustrated in the story in gentle ways), but I really appreciated Mr. Blum’s fair look at this particular community.

Hoodie’s attraction to Anna-Marie is a little heart-breaking, at least it was from my adult perspective. It’s doomed from the start, and Anna-Marie has an entirely different mindset from him, along with a streak of…I don’t want to say cruelty, maybe indifference, that shows up later on. Both characters have some growing up to do – entirely understandable, as they’re both teenagers – so they struggle to navigate their differences and places in the world, and Anna-Marie’s reasons for getting to know Hoodie in the first place aren’t exactly noble. But the violence wrought upon the community changes everything, and Mr. Blum does a phenomenal job at handling this. Truly fantastic writing in the final quarter of the book.

I really enjoyed this. The characters are complex and well-crafted, each one a distinct personality; the Orthodox community is portrayed wonderfully and fairly, and the novel as a whole works really well. For a debut novel, this is amazing, and I’m seriously looking forward to reading everything Isaac Blum writes in the future.

Visit Isaac Blum’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story by Irene Butter

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I know I’ve said before I feel a huge responsibility to read Holocaust memoirs, because those stories deserve to be heard. I do need to ration them out, though. They’re painful to read, because so many people collectively lost their humanity, and others temporarily stashed theirs away in order to survive (sometimes understandable), and the death and damage and trauma can be a lot (hat tip to Holocaust scholars; I truly admire their strength and their ability to engage with this material on a daily basis. I wish our local Holocaust museum were just a little closer; I’d absolutely sign up to volunteer there if it were). This is how Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story by Irene Butter (White River Press, 2018) ended up on my TBR, and interlibrary loan brought it into my life.

Irene Butter, known as Reni throughout the book, was born in Germany, to her parents, Mutti and Pappi, with an older brother, Werner. The family moved to Amsterdam due to the growing threat of the Nazis, sharing a neighborhood with Anne Frank (Reni knew her, but they weren’t close), but leaving her grandparents, who hadn’t received permission to move, behind. And of course, eventually, the Nazis invaded Holland as well, and like so many others, Reni’s family was rounded up.

The family was first sent to Westerbork, and then on to Bergen-Belsen. Through miracle after miracle, the family manages to stay together. Mutti and Pappi are forced to do hard labor; everyone starves; death is all around them, as is suffering in so many forms. A plan that Pappi put in place before their internment comes to fruition, though it doesn’t have all of the outcome they’d hoped for. Through it all, Irene holds it together, remains stronger than any child should ever have to be, and goes on to build a beautiful life for herself.

The story of Irene Butter’s life is one of joy, suffering, tragedy, beauty, horror, and survival. Her relationship with her brother is a deep point of joy in this book; the two always look out for and car for each other, with a healthy dose of sibling teasing thrown in for good measure. Her parents are strong and thoughtful, desperate to keep their family together and safe through it all. The book covers the time from Irene’s birth through her time in Camp Jeanne d’Arc in Algeria, a displaced persons camp; it tells a little of her life afterwards – returning to high school, attending college, marrying, having children, and eventually becoming a sought-after speaker on the Holocaust, among other accomplishments. I do wish it would’ve gone into a little more detail about her life in America post-arrival. What must it have been like to return to school, to sit at a desk surrounded by students your age who had zero idea the nightmare you’d survived? How old she must’ve felt looking around at everyone around her. My heart goes out to all that Mrs. Butter suffered, and the young child she was, and the carefree teenager she should have been but wasn’t allowed to be. She’s managed to live a remarkable life, and living well truly is the best revenge. It doesn’t make up for so much loss, of course, but every bit helps.

I hadn’t realized it until the end, but Mrs. Butter had written this book with John. D. Bidwell and Kris Holloway. Ms. Holloway wrote and Mr. Bidwell is the contributing editor of Monique and the Mango Rains, the memoir of Kris Holloway’s time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali and her friendship with the dynamic midwife Monique. I absolutely loved this book and think of it often, so it was a delight to read the bios at the back and realize they were a part of bringing this book to life.

Visit Irene Butter’s website here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Stephanie1 Comment

You know that feeling when your TBR is empty and you have absolutely nothing to read, so you’re just wandering around the library listlessly?

Yeah, me neither.

What really happened was this: I had a stack of like five books or so that I needed to read, but my daughter wanted to get some library books, so I took her over, telling myself, “I’m not getting anything for me! I have way to much to read already.”

And then the library had a lovely display of books that included Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon (Simon Pulse, 2020), whom I LOVE, and, well, it went into my bag, because I have no self-control when it comes to Jewish authors I love. And this was such an excellent moment of weakness, because I ADORED this book.

It’s the last day of high school, and Rowan Roth is ready to finally best Neil McNair once and for all by being awarded valedictorian. She and McNair have been battling it out every single minute of the last four years, each trying to outdo the other for grades, awards, status. The day isn’t starting out great, though; a fender-bender has Rowan slipping into the office late, only to face – who else? – Neil, who works there. Ugh.

The whole last day of school is strange, and when the senior class game – Howl, a Seattle-wide scavenger hunt that will award the last student standing with $5,000 – starts up that evening, Rowan quickly finds herself paired up with Neil, who…maybe isn’t quite as awful as she’s made him out to be the past four years. He’s maybe even kind of cute. And – holy shit- he’s Jewish, too???

What else has Rowan missed???

As the night goes on, Rowan and Neil grow closer, and she learns so much about him that she hadn’t known before, since her focus had been solely on competition. But things change, people change…and with everything else changing at this moment in time, maybe it’s time for Rowan and Neil’s relationship to change as well.

This is such a fun YA novel. Rowan is driven, almost single-minded, and that causes her to miss out on a lot, something she’s only really realizing on this last day of senior year. Her love of romance novels is endearing; I love the growth and openness she attributes to her admiration of the genre, because it makes her a far more interesting character than it would have otherwise. There is one scene I didn’t care for at all; Rowan goes too far and uses something she learned about Neil to lash out and hurt him the way she felt he hurt her, and…it was too far. I was honestly a little surprised Neil moved on from that as quickly as he did. I don’t know that that was a choice I would have made as an author. But really, everything else in this story is perfection; it’s a straight-up love letter to Seattle (a phrase I thought of early on, only to read it in Ms. Solomon’s afterword. *high five*), a city I’ve never been to, but which Ms. Solomon made come alive. I truly felt like I’d spent the day racing around the city with Rowan and Neil.

And Neil! What a great character. Awkward, determined, quirky, hardworking, Jewish – what’s not to love? I had a somewhat similar relationship with a guy friend in high school, though nowhere near as competitive (we were into very different things, for one). This was long before the days of texting, so I had to wonder throughout this book what our texts would have looked like, if they would’ve been as snarky as Rowan and Neil’s (likely worse; we were pretty brutal at times). I enjoyed their friendship and their blossoming romance, and the optimism for the future that this book absolutely bursts with.

Such a great read. Rachel Lynn Solomon absolutely knocked it out of the park with this one.

Visit Rachel Lynn Solomon’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books by Mark Glickman

Stephanie1 Comment

I can’t actually remember how Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books by Mark Glickman (The Jewish Publication Society, 2015) ended up on my TBR; likely a mention by one of the many Jewish pages I follow on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Books and reading have always been an important part of being Jewish (we are the People of the Book!), and so learning about and understanding what happened to Jewish books during and after World War II was something that piqued my interest. Boy, did I learn a LOT from this book!

So, almost everyone knows that the Nazi burned books. Most of us have seen pictures of people throwing books onto a huge bonfire, and we use Nazi book burning as a metaphor for the dangers of censorship. But most of us probably don’t know that their book burning phase didn’t last very long; they quickly moved on to collecting books. That’s right. The Nazis stole, then collected Jewish writings even as they mowed down the Jewish people during World War II. They planned to study the writings of the culture they had wiped out. Fortunately, they lost, and afterwards, one of the many questions to be answered at war’s end became, “Now what do we do with all these millions of books?”

In order to help the reader understand the importance of this question, Rabbi Mark Glickman begins the book with a fascinating look at the history of Jewish texts and the emphasis on reading and study that has always been central to Judaism. The second section segues into the many heartbreaking ways the Nazis stole and desecrated our texts; the third, how so many people worked for years to return said texts to their rightful owners, or, barring the ability to do that, to send the texts to the places they would again be loved and cherished. This was obviously a massive amount of work; millions upon millions of books and papers had been stolen and hidden away, or stored in places that ranged from caves to castles. Moving these books involved multiple organizations working tirelessly for years.

This is an incredible book that tells a story I hadn’t heard before. I had no idea about the Nazis stealing books; even with all the reading I’ve done about history, World War II, and the Shoah, I had been under the impression that they burned books and nothing else. I had no clue about the massive troves of Jewish literature that lay hidden after the war, nor of the incredible effort of so many people to return these books to communities and organizations that would recognize them for the treasures that they are. This book presented a brand-new understanding of history to me, and I’m grateful to Rabbi Glickman for having penned such an interested, eye-opening work. I always appreciate being able to be better informed about anything, but especially Judaism and Jewish history.

fiction

Book Review: The Ladies Auxiliary by Tova Mirvis

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Okay, y’all. I have discovered a deep love for Tova Mirvis’s books. I’ve read The Book of Separation and The Outside World, both of which I loved, and a few week ago, I picked up a copy of The Ladies Auxiliary (Ballantine Books, 1999). From the first page, I was hooked with a capital HOOKED. This book pulled me in like a shark dragging me into the deepest ocean waters, and I didn’t want it to end, like, EVER. If you haven’t read Tova Mirvis, you neeeeeeeeeeeeeed to. She’s so good.

The orthodox Jewish community of Memphis, Tennessee is abuzz with the news of a new woman moving to town. Bathsheba, a recently widowed mother, has come to town, her late husband’s hometown, with her five-year-old daughter Ayala, for a fresh start, and the women of the town want to know everything about this unconventional woman. Bathsheba is a convert, a woman with a past outside of Orthodox Judaism, and immediately, the community is on edge. Who is this woman with her strange way of dressing and her outside-the-box behavior? What kind of influence will she be on the young people of their community? What’s she really doing here?

The more the women get to know Bathsheba, the more suspicious they are. Even though she’s still following the rules of the community, is she really following them well, with the right spirit? After all, they wouldn’t want their daughters to end up like her. Surely they’re in the right in ostracizing her, because she just doesn’t fit in. Not really. And the more the women of Memphis try to push Bathsheba away and make her understand she’s not wanted, the more damage they actually do to one of their most beloved members.

Oh my goodness, this was WONDERFUL. The Ladies Auxiliary is narrated in a kind of first person plural, as in “We thought this,” and “All of us wanted to know…”, and then goes into examples of that behavior, describing each character in third person omniscient. I loved this structure SO much. I’ve never seen this done before, and it worked so very, very well to illuminate the suspicion, the fear, and the gossipy, bullying nature of some members of the community. Absolutely incredible storytelling.

Bathsheba is a strong character who withstands a lot in this book. She does show her hurt several times, but not as much as one might suspect. The other members of the community, for all their piousness, are often portrayed as nosey, judgmental, and unable to see beyond the tips of their own noses. The introduction of a colorful new person to their insular community wakes them up, but not in the way they need to, and their behavior and treatment of Bathsheba will have exactly the opposite effect, driving them all apart, harming their relationships with each other, and most of all, harming the very last person they wanted to hurt.

The Ladies Auxiliary comes to an excellent conclusion, with a few questions still left up in the air. Plenty still remains to be seen, and that’s left for the reader to wonder, to ponder, to try to fill in the blanks. Does the community truly learn its lesson? It’s something I’ll be considering for a long time.

Excellent, excellent book. I loved every page of this.

Visit Tova Mirvis’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction

Book Review: Miracles and Menorahs by Stacey Agdern

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Representation matters. By now, anyone with half a brain understands this. It’s nice to be able to see parts of who we are on screen, in the pages of a book, in whatever media we consume. I always enjoy learning of new (or new-to-me; I’m often behind in just about everything) Jewish fiction, because seeing characters casually discuss the same holidays I celebrate, or approaching a difficult situation with a mindset they learned from the Jewish influences in their lives just makes my heart sing. I was happy to learn about Miracles and Menorahs by Stacey Agdern (Tule Publishing Group, 2020), and even happier to find it on the shelves of my library.

Sarah Goldman is second in command on the board of her small town’s Hanukkah festival (yup, you read that right!), a tradition that’s been going on for many years, but some people in the town want changes. More red, more green, more trees…boy, is this sounding familiar. But Sarah’s determined to keep the festival all Hanukkah, and for that, she’s going to need something special, like a giant menorah (how they didn’t already have one of these already kind of baffled me…). But where could she possibly find one of those so late in the game?

Enter Isaac Lieberman, metal artist and grandson of one of the town’s most beloved members. He’s single, good-looking, talented…and 100% against any kind of commercialization of Hanukkah, so making a giant menorah for Sarah’s festival is definitely not on his list of priorities. Bummer. But as he and Sarah spend more time together and Isaac gets to know the town where his bubbe lives, he may just change his mind…about a lot of things.

This is a very sweet Hanukkah romance – there’s no more action than a few chaste kisses, so if you avoid anything hotter than a bell pepper, you’ll be okay picking up Miracles and Menorahs. It’s basically a Hallmark movie in book form.

The ups: Jewish representation. SO much rep. Most of the town is Jewish (which makes a few of the board members cranky to suddenly find their holiday in the minority; the whole situation is shades of @JewWhoHasItAll on Twitter, a great follow!), and Jewish foods and rituals are discussed without needing much explanation, which is pretty awesome. I love seeing that in books. The small town is, for the most part, incredible in the way that small towns only are in books (I’m from a small town. In reality, it’s snobbery, gossip, arrogance, bigotry, hypocrisy, and hatred with a cute downtown. It breaks my heart, really), and the bookstore where Sarah works is charming.

The downs: I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I found the writing a bit stilted, there wasn’t nearly enough action to keep me interested, and I felt like the book could have benefitted from a stronger editor (overuse of certain words, stronger action, heavier on the drama). What drama did exist in the book felt…boring, some of it (Isaac’s mother, especially) felt overdone and a little unrealistic, and to be honest, I had a hard time finishing the book. I will say that I prefer my fiction to be written in first-person; this is written in third, and I have a harder time connecting to that, so some of my issues connecting with this book are definitely mine, because plenty of other people have enjoyed it.

Miracles and Menorahs is part of a series. I’m disappointed that I don’t feel enough of a connection to the book or the characters to continue on with the other books, but if this sounds like something you’re interested in picking up, you’re in luck that there are several books beyond this one.

Visit Stacey Agdern’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.