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In my quest to be a better reader and review more books, I (of course) immediately hit a snag. The book I just finished reading? I didn't like it...

And it wasn't an 'it was okay, just not the best' kind of dislike--I really, really didn't like it. The only reason I finished it was because I bought it, and thought I should finish. Like when you buy those store-brand ginger snaps, and you eat them in spite of their sucky-ness.

I decided not to review the book, since it could be just me. And as an author, I know how much those bad reviews can sting.

How about you, YA Sleutheri? Do you review books you don't like?

While I cannot review books eligible for BFYA, I can describe them and I can still actively promote books written by authors of color. One way I’ll creatively do that is by providing more guests posts this year. I am looking for guest reviewers, so if you have read or are reading any of the (FEW!!) MG or YA books that were written by authors of color and would like to write a review, please contact me at crazyquilts in care of hotmail dot com.

Today, I’m featuring Shadra Strickland’s comments on The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Arthur A. Levine; March 2013).

Click to read the first chapter on NPR

From the publisher’s website:

A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil.

The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that’s sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June’s best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a fellow artist.

Together, June and Enki will stage explosive, dramatic projects that Palmares Tres will never forget. They will add fuel to a growing rebellion against the government’s strict limits on new tech. And June will fall deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.

Pulsing with the beat of futuristic Brazil, burning with the passions of its characters, and overflowing with ideas, this fiery novel will leave you eager for more from Alaya Dawn Johnson.

From Shadra Strickland:

I just really enjoyed the book for it’s daring and unconventionality. The setting really made me use my imagination and create Palmeres Tres in my mind. I felt that all of the rules of the world that Johnson created in this novel made us stretch our imagination. I loved watching our heroine transform throughout the story. I loved the intimate relationships she had with Gil, which read to me less like a romantic infatuation but more like a relationship built through common ideas and support, and then watching her relationship with Enki evolve through art. As an artist who also had to leave her comfort zone and mesh with other artists before fully coming into her own, I can relate to the idea of seeing a reflection of myself through someone who is freer thinking and uninhibited by certain rules and trappings of modern society. I can relate to the excitement and energy she found when she combined her ideas with Enki’s to create something more powerful and daring than she could have imagined on her own until she learned to trust her own voice and create for herself.

I did not focus as much on the rules of the world our characters lived in. I was amused to see a futuristic world where so many ideas about love, sexuality, and freedom were expanded from what we know now, but how difficult it still was for people to embrace change and new ideas.

I think that was the overarching theme for me…transformation.

I enjoyed how Johnson answered many what ifs about society. What if women ruled the world? What if we could live for centuries (if not forever) and choose when we wanted to leave our physical bodies? What if technology merged with art; how would we use it? What if love was love and free from gender restrictions? What if the future really did belong to young people?

Shadra Strickland studied, design, writing, and illustration at Syracuse University and later went on to complete her M.F.A. at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She won the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent in 2009 for her work in her first picturebook, Bird, written by Zetta Elliott. Strickland co-illustrated Our Children Can Soar, winner of a 2010 NAACP Image Award. Shadra is also the illustrator of A Place Where Hurricanes Happen (Random House, 2010), written by Renee Watson: a story of four children in New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. Publishers Weekly called Strickland’s illustrations “quietly powerful,” and Booklist said, “In vibrant, mixed-media images, award-winning illustrator Strickland extends the drama, feeling, and individual stories.” from Shadra’s website

Prime Number Magazine seeks smart, well-written book reviews that explore the author’s craft and examine where the work fits within current literary trends. We are not seeking reviews that accentuate the negative. Prime Number Magazine’s on-line quarterly seeks four 400-800 word reviews and one author interview of800-1,200 words per issue. Our print annual seeks one to two review essays,between 2,000 and 3,000 words, which critically examine two or more authors.Our review essays are peer-reviewed, so please send us only your best critical works. Our print annual may also include a longer author interview with a notable writer. Though our print interviews are often conducted by our Prime Number Magazine staff, if reviewers have an interview idea, please pitch us the idea.

Though Prime Number Magazine frequently has books for assignment, we encourage our reviewers to query us if they have a suggested book for review. (Note, unless provided by one of our participating presses and assigned by our staff, all reviewed books are the responsibility of the review author to obtain.) Please direct queries or questions concerning book reviews or author interviews to the Prime Number Magazine book reviews editor at:

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Above and below: samples of the book-friendly cartoons by Tom Gault, whose YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK is being published later this year by Drawn & Quarterly. I have to buy this book!

See more samples of his comics in BookPatrol as well as Tom's Tumblr blog.

Today, my long-overdue revue of J. Patrick Lewis's marvelous collection, When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders, which is illustrated by five different artists: Jim Burke, R. Gregory Christie, Tonya Engel, John Parra, and Meilo So. (My apologies to the illustrators for not including them in the subject line as is my usual practice, but it got a bit unwieldy, I'm afraid.)

Pat Lewis has provided eighteen poems in this book: an introductory sonnet (using the Shakespearean format) that begins as follows:

The poor and dispossessed take up the drums
For civil rights--freedoms to think and speak,
Petition, pray, and vote. When thunder comes,
The civil righteous are finished being meek.

The Statesman
by J. Patrick Lewis

It is as if he's landed on the moon
Five years before the actual event.
At Robben Island Prison, his descent
Into a nightmare world, an outcast dune,
Begins at forty-six. His fate derails.
There are no clocks, his life's defined by bell
And whistle, sisal mats (no beds), his cell
Is seven feet square. But destiny prevails.

He keeps for an eternity of years
His keepers, not the other way around,
Marked by a calm refinement so profound
As to alleviate his captors' fears.
He said, once they had turned the jailhouse key,
No man will rob me of my dignity.

The Crusader
by J. Patrick Lewis

I knew my rights meant nothing.
I kept them out of sight.
Seen and heard when the sun went down,
hidden in harsh daylight.

Then Liberation called one day
and asked would I consent
to tell the world that I was proud
of being different.

I took the fight to the city fathers.
They scolded me for that:
We don’t approve of boys who wear
an unconventional hat.

So I became a city father
to break the laws that kept
boys and girls from living lives
that Life would not accept.

They say I came before my time
but who else would redress
unmitigated suffering due
to such small-mindedness?

Love this. It's the kind of book I want to read slowly, to immerse myself in the atmosphere. Gorgeous prose. It gave me nightmares...but in a good way.

I just bought the sequel, Mistle Child, and can't wait to read it!

More info about the book.

Author: Ari Berk.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers.

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Click on my "microbooktweet" tag to browse some of my other micro-length book reviews and tweets. Please note that I am not seeking new books to review; I usually only review books already in my To Read pile.

In Search of Goliathus Hercules by Jennifer Angus.

Henri (pronounced Henry) Bell has been sent to live with his Great Aunt Georgie in America while his mother searches for Henri's lost father in the jungles of Malaysia.  At Great Aunt Georgie's home, Henri discovers that he can speak with insects!!

 

This amazing talent - and his mother's failure to find his father - sends Henri on an odyssey.  He will work and raise money and go search for his father himself.  And in the meantime, he will also find the elusive, giant, mythical insect - Goliathus Hercules.

But his Great-Aunt's evil neighbor, Agatha Black, is chasing Henri to Henri's great confusion and fear.

Set in late the late 19th century when scientific explorations were viewed with as much anticipation as first run movies are now, this book has everything - circus sideshows, weird talents, fascinating insects, nascent science, formal correspondence, disguises of all kinds, good friends and a baffling, creepy evil-doer.

The ending leaves the door- or window - wide open for a sequel.  Here's hoping we get to see Henri in action again.

(I know I promised to you earlier this week.  *cough, cough*  I have been sick. *snort, snuffle, cough, cough, cough*)

I'm very happy that Sled Ride has been included in this list of new winter books for children! Read about all of them here.

THE DARKEST CORNER OF THE WORLD

Author: Urve Tamberg

Publisher: Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books

------------- 

Had a fantastic time in NYC. More on this soon. But one of the books I read during the trip was Urve's The Darkest Corner Of The World, which is about a teen girl's struggle in Estonia during the World War II Soviet occupation.

I was never a huge history fan back in school. I got great marks, but that was only because I was very good at memorizing. As soon as the school year over, all the dates and facts I had spent hours committing to memory melted away like the last bits of dingy snow left after a long winter.

It was only years later that I began to become more interested in certain periods of history because of historical fiction I was enjoying. Caring about the characters made me care more about their world. After finishing a novel, I'd research using the library and (later) online resources to find out more. 

I'm currently reading The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich by William Shirer and enjoying it MUCH more than I expected. As a result, I'm also starting to seek out historical fiction tied in with related events. Code Name Verity was one, and The Darkest Corner Of The World was the latest. 

Lots of fascinating details about Estonian culture and life back then, all skilfully woven into a fast-paced story about 15-year-old Madli and the difficult choices she must make in order to survive.

Click on my "microbooktweet" tag to browse some of my other micro-length book reviews and tweets.

Tina Fey and Paul Rudd team up for the first time in this adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitz‘s debut about the college admissions process. The movie hits theaters March 8, 2013. Do you think it will stay true to the plot?

SUMMARY:

“Admissions. Admission. Aren’t there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides…It’s what we let in, but it’s also what we let out.”

For years, 38-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as thousands of the nation’s brightest students await her decision regarding their academic admission, so too must Portia decide whether to make her own ultimate admission.

Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman’s life to its core.

People Magazine calls it “deeply moving and inventive historical novel…[that is] ultimately a tribute to the beauty of sisterly love.” It’s also an Indie Next Pick, with one reviewer saying, “At the end of the 19th century, Paris was the center of the world for all arts, and humanity struggled with massive changes in the very structure of society. Degas and Zola were players on this stage as were three sisters who aspired to the world of ballet. Based on historical figures and incidents, this novel delivers great atmosphere and fully realized characters who weave through the harsh yet rich tapestry of the times and tell a story of family, romance, degradation, and fulfillment.” —Karen Frank, Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, VT

The Washington Post ran a review of Painted Girls by Susan Vreeland. She writes that Buchanan  “paints the girls who spring from the page as vibrantly as a dancer’s leap across a stage.” Buchanan details Belle Epoque Paris, a space and time that I have not explored in fiction and the three poor sisters dreaming of being ballerinas. “Through their bad decisions, lying, thieving and prostitution of one sort or another, one reads on, compelled by love for these girls whom Buchanan describes so compassionately.”

SUMMARY:

A gripping novel set in Belle Époque Paris and inspired by the real-life model for Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen and a notorious criminal trial of the era.

Paris. 1878. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventy francs a month, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work—and the love of a dangerous
young man—as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir.

Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modelling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her
image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer
Aged Fourteen. Antoinette, meanwhile, descends
lower and lower in society, and must make the choice between a life of honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde—that is, unless her love affair derails her completely.

Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural,
and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.”

Yikes! Sylvia Plath’s infamous (and only) novel, THE BELL JAR, received a 50th Anniversary makeover and it’s not making people happy. Apparently the publisher tried to make it more appealing to women’s fiction fans. Get ready for an uprising on the internet. This is certainly going to spark a dialogue.

Tai and Juliet have been best friends forever – since they met at kindy and decided to get married in first grade.

They understand each other in the way that only best friends can.

They love music, beach walks, energy drinks and, they are slowly discovering, each other. 

As they begin to dream of adventures beyond the HSC – a future free of homework, curfews and parents, a life together – their plans are suddenly and dramatically derailed.

For Tai is sick.

And not everything you wish for can come true.

A poignant story of first love, hope, grief, family, and the twistedness of life.

I can't read novels about dying teenagers anymore. I just can't. I've reached my limit. (I think writing a novel about a dying teenager didn't really help.) That said, Everything Left Unsaid is beautifully written and sweet and thoughtful. As well as being, naturally, incredibly depressing. This is a good book to read if you want to have a good cry, but then afterwards you should probably read something light and uplifting and not-at-all serious.

One of the more remarkable things about this novel is the utter believability of the dialogue. I think there's a tendency in YA generally for everyone's conversations to be filled with incredible wit and snappiness and generally more eloquence than teenagers actually have, which is entertaining but perhaps doesn't always ring true. There was no point at which the dialogue seemed false in Everything Left Unsaid, and the way the characters related to each other (and the way in which they behaved) was very authentic. There's also quite a lot of drinking and sexual references. There's a great deal of realism overall, which makes it all the more heart-breaking.

Davidson is yet another Australian writing brilliant contemporary YA. Really. I don't think I've read a single contemporary YA novel by an Australian author in the last year that I've disliked.

I'd recommend it to older YA readers (and adult readers also) if only because the tone is incredibly somber. It's a heavy and incredibly poignant novel. If you read it and don't cry (or at the very least get that unpleasant about-to-cry sensation in your chest), then I'm not sure you have a soul.

On the publisher's website
On Goodreads

CODE NAME VERITY Author: Elizabeth Wein Publisher: Hyperion, 2012

Working on sketches for NAKED! today. Each time I finish a sketch, I reward myself with a chapter of CODE NAME VERITY.

— Debbie Ridpath Ohi (@inkyelbows) January 18, 2013

Click on my "microbooktweet" tag to browse some of my other micro-length book reviews and tweets.

I've been starting to post micro book reviews & comments about kidlit/YA books on Twitter from time to time, and will include them here on Inkygirl when I like a book. I'll tag these with "microbooktweet" to make it easier for people to find similar posts.

Wonderful world-building details enhance @cindypon's YA fantasy FURY OF THE PHOENIX, rewarding sequel to SILVER PHOENIX.

— Debbie Ridpath Ohi (@inkyelbows) January 20, 2013

Sisters can be the best of friends. Or the worst of enemies.

Or, they can change so much you don’t know who they are.

That’s what happens to 15-year-old Carly in Lauren Myracle’s young-adult novel Peace, Love and Baby Ducks (Dutton, 2009). She comes home from summer camp to find that her younger sister, Anna, has turned into a beautiful, shallow teenager who’s more interested in fashion, friends and boys than Carly ever was.

Carly doesn’t know what to make of Anna — or her extremely well-off family and its focus on money and appearances. Carly’s summer camp made her re-evaluate her priorities, and she’s not sure her family’s lifestyle lines up with them any more.

What will she do?

Let’s see what today’s guest reviewer has to say.

——————

You should read this book because: It doesn’t end the way you think it will.

——————

Thanks, Je’Kyah!

Lauren Myracle is a New York Times best-selling author. She’s also one of our country’s most frequently “challenged” writers, meaning, her books have appeared at the top of the American Library Association’s list of titles most often requested for removal — or banning — from our public libraries’ shelves. If you’d like to learn more about Lauren Myracle, you can:

• Read this interview with her from the New York Times.
• Watch this video.
• Follow her on Twitter.

There are so many enticing books releasing over the next few months and I literally can’t wait to get my hands on ALL of them. Debut novels and returning favorites are topping the lists of my BOOKS TO PINE FOR. I also threw in a bibliophile journal to keep track of all my reading. Make sure to put these on your lists.

BOOKS I’VE READ: A Bibliophile’s Journal

For avid readers who see books as a vital part of their lives and homes, this beautifully illustrated reading journal is a decorative object in itself. Conceived by Deborah Needleman and illustrated by Virginia Johnson, the author/illustrator team behind The Perfectly Imperfect Home, this journal reflects the same aesthetic and spirit that made the book so successful.

Whether you read print books, ebooks, or a bit of both, Books I’ve Read will serve as a tangible keepsake of your reading experiences. The journal features an elegant three-piece case and is filled with full-color illustrations of impressive home libraries and cozy reading corners from Deborah Needleman’s home décor guide The Perfectly Imperfect Home. It also contains recommended reading lists from a variety of reputable sources (Pulitzer Prize, Man Booker, and National Book Award winners, Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels, BBC’s Best Novels, etc.), as well as prompts for making your own lists (Most Beautiful Books, Books I’ve Given as Gifts, Books I Loved as a Child).

{Adorable illustrations in a journal for keeping track of the books you read…yes, please!}

Release Date: June 25, 2013

The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan

From the New York Times best-selling author of Maine and Commencement comes a big, sprawling novel about marriage-about those who marry in a white heat of passion, those who marry for partnership and comfort, and those who live together, love each other, and have absolutely no intention of ruining it all with a wedding.

Evelyn has been married to her husband for forty years-forty years since he slipped off her first wedding ring and put his own in its place. Delphine knows both sides of love-the ecstatic, glorious highs of seduction and the bitter, spiteful fury that descends when it’s over. James, a paramedic who works the night shift, knows his wife’s family thinks she could have done better. Kate, partnered with Dan for ten years, has seen every kind of wedding-from the Nantucket beach wedding to the Irish castle wedding-and has vowed never, ever, to have one of her own. And Mary Frances Gerety, a young advertising copywriter, knows exactly what marriage is: it’s a diamond ring on a girl’s finger-and it’s her job to make sure everyone believes that. Weaving these lives together, Sullivan gives us a sharply observed, witty, irresistible portrait of the thorny, joyful, and complicated union that is marriage.

{Loved, loved, loved Maine. This one is topping my list of Books to Pine For!}

Release Date: June 4, 2013

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

A charming and laugh-out-loud novel by Lauren Graham, beloved star of Parenthood and Gilmore Girls, about an aspiring actress trying to make it in mid-nineties New York City.

Franny Banks is a struggling actress in New York City, with just six months left of the three year deadline she gave herself to succeed. But so far, all she has to show for her efforts is a single line in an ad for ugly Christmas sweaters and a degrading waitressing job. She lives in Brooklyn with two roommates-Jane, her best friend from college, and Dan, a sci-fi writer, who is very definitely not boyfriend material-and is struggling with her feelings for a suspiciously charming guy in her acting class, all while trying to find a hair-product cocktail that actually works. Meanwhile, she dreams of doing “important” work, but only ever seems to get auditions for dishwashing liquid and peanut butter commercials. It’s hard to tell if she’ll run out of time or money first, but either way, failure would mean facing the fact that she has absolutely no skills to make it in the real world. Her father wants her to come home and teach, her agent won’t call her back, and her classmate Penelope, who seems supportive, might just turn out to be her toughest competition yet. Someday, Someday, Maybe is a funny and charming debut about finding yourself, finding love, and, most difficult of all, finding an acting job.

{I always have to check out a celebrity’s novel…and Lauren Graham is always funny so this might be a hit!}

Release Date: April 30, 2013

SISTERLAND by Curtis Sittenfeld

From nationally bestselling author of Prep and American Wife, an expressive novel centered on a natural disaster that shakes a family to its core and forces a woman to confront the identity she’s been fleeing since adolescence.

St. Louis, 2009-Kate and Jeremy are caught unawares after being woken by a series of tremors just hours south of the strongest earthquake in U.S. history. The quake has taken a toll on Kate’s nerves, but it’s nothing compared with her identical twin sister, Vi-a self-proclaimed psychic medium-having broadcast a prediction that a more powerful earthquake would strike. While her sister’s performance is embarrassing to say the least, Kate can’t dismiss the hunch as wholly ungrounded, for to do so would be to deny a part of herself that exists no matter how hard she’s tried to suppress it. Faced with the question of whether she hopes her sister’s prophecy will ring false, though it would put her in the line of public scrutiny, or true, though it could mean widespread destruction and even death, Kate must decide whether or not to hone in on her long-ignored faculties to predict what will happen, and admit to her friends, family and community that she has this unusual ability.

{I loved Prep and American Wife so I can’t wait to see what else she has in store for us.}

Release Date: June 25, 2013

THE LIFE LIST by Lori Nelson

Perfect for readers of Allison Winn Scotch, Jill Smolinski, and Cecilia Ahern’s PS, I Love You, this debut novel is the emotionally resonant, utterly charming story of a woman who must reevaluate her life when her mother passes away, leaving her the task of completing a list of life goals she wrote as a teenager.

When her mother dies, Brett is grief stricken, but it comforts her to know that her future is mapped out before her. She will step into her mother’s role as the CEO of Bohlinger Cosmetics, and will continue dating her boyfriend, the detached but deliciously handsome Andrew. But her mother had a different plan for her. When the will is read, Brett gets the shock of her life. Not only will she NOT be the CEO of Bohlinger Cosmetics, but she also will only get her inheritance if she fulfills a set of life goals she wrote-and then threw out-twenty years ago. At first Brett is outraged-she long ago stopped wanting the things she desired as a teen, and she likes her life just fine. But as she begins to follow “the life list,” she realizes that her mother might just have known her better than she knows herself.

{Sounds like women’s fiction at its best!}

Release Date: July 30, 2013

THE GIRL IN THE BLUE DRESS by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus

Following college, Jamie McAllister wins a prestigious internship at the White House that she has no idea will irrevocably alter her life. An unexpected flirtation with the handsome and charismatic Gregory Rutland quickly leads to an emotional relationship she is ill equipped to handle at twenty-two. Each time she tries to extricate herself Greg is unable to find the strength to let her go. Meanwhile, the opposing party mobilizes to annihilate his presidency by any means necessary.

As Greg’s conflicting desires drive her to the breaking point, Jamie can’t help but reveal intimate details to those closest to her. But she must have unburdened herself to the wrong person—because within a matter of weeks Jamie finds herself, and everyone she loves, facing highly calculated destruction at the hands of Greg’s political enemies.

With her every mistake dragged out for the world to judge, Jamie has to endure an unprecedented trial in the court of public opinion—with the fate of the President, his party, and the country at stake.

Now, years later, can the woman infamously known as the “girl in the blue dress” make sense of this affair, and the trauma it wrought, for the world—and for herself?

{I wonder who the character is based on?}

Release Date: August 27, 2013

Entertainment Weekly gave Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde by Rebecca Dana an A- saying, “When Dana lands at Penn Station with $20 and the promise of a journalism job, she feels the weight of “everyone else’s stories falling like fresh soot from the skyscrapers above.” She knows there’s no new New York tale to tell — though Manhattan does give her all the glitter and heartbreak that a suburban Pittsburgh girl who dreamed of Truman Capote and Carrie Bradshaw could ask for. But like the martial-arts-obsessed Hasid of the title, her take on being young and smart and emotionally adrift in the city is odd and charming enough to be that elusive thing: a true original.”

Oprah Magazine calls it an “insightful tale of two fish out of water, an odd couple who together confront their very different God issues.”

Summary:

The ultimate fish-out-of-water tale . . .
A child who never quite fit in, Rebecca Dana worshipped at the altar of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron, dreaming of one day ditching Pittsburgh and moving to New York, her Jerusalem. After graduating from college, she made her way to the city to begin her destiny. For a time, life turned out exactly as she’d planned: glamorous parties; beautiful people; the perfect job, apartment, and man. But when it all came crashing down, she found herself catapulted into another world. She moves into Brooklyn’s enormous Lubavitch community, and lives with Cosmo, a thirty-year-old Russian rabbi who practices jujitsu on the side.

While Cosmo, disenchanted with Orthodoxy, flirts with leaving the community, Rebecca faces the fact that her religion—the books, magazines, TV shows, and movies that made New York seem like salvation—has also failed her. As she shuttles between the world of religious extremism and the world of secular excess, Rebecca goes on a search for meaning.

Trenchantly observant, entertaining as hell, a mix of Shalom Auslander and The Odd Couple, Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde is a thought-provoking coming-of-age story for the twenty-first century.