SISTERS OF FORTUNE

Three sisters coming of age in Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community navigate tradition, love, and self-discovery within the constraints of a tightknit religious world.

The novel opens as Fortune, the middle sister in the Cohen family, thinks about her upcoming wedding to Saul Dweck, a nice boy from the neighborhood who meets every expectation but stirs little passion. Fortune has been working as an office assistant at her father’s company, biding her time until marriage, as is expected. Her older sister, Nina, spends her days helping their mother with her thriving catering company. At 26, Nina’s already considered a spinster, yet she’s just beginning to think about what she might want from life. When a job at a record label falls in her lap, she grabs it, eager to taste independence beyond their insular community. Meanwhile, the youngest sister, Lucy, a senior at a local Jewish high school, has recently caught the eye of a highly eligible 30-year-old doctor named David, and nobody seems to mind their glaring age difference. As Nina and Lucy begin to challenge what’s expected of them, Fortune begins to wonder whether she has the courage to upend her safe, preordained future with Saul for something less certain, but perhaps far more satisfying. Told in alternating first-person narratives from each of the three sisters, the novel offers many evocative, chaotic, slice-of-life moments. From the savory smells of traditional dishes, to the sharp-edged banter among mother and daughters, the story is chock-full of vivid details and prose that brings the rhythms of this Syrian-American Jewish family to life. The relationship between Lucy and David, and the unequal power dynamic between this 18-year-old high schooler and a much older man, raises concerns that warranted greater attention, leaving a gap in an otherwise thoughtful portrayal of gender and tradition. Even so, this plot-driven novel deftly examines weighty themes like generational pressure, sisterhood, and quiet rebellion, creating an intimate, tender, and insightful portrait of women carving space for themselves in a world that offers them little room to breathe.

A vibrant celebration of identity and the push-pull between heritage and autonomy.