A fairly amusing, sometimes erotic story of contemporary urban Jewish young womanhood.
In Harris’ novel, a young Jewish woman in a dead-end relationship meets a charismatic man who enjoys spanking her.
Although its title suggests a broad, Mel Brooks–style sendup of E.L. James’ erotic romance Fifty Shades of Grey (2011), most of this novel follows a fairly standard chick-lit format: A young woman in a trendy job juggles relationship troubles, family and work. Maya Stein, nearing 30, lives in Brooklyn and works at an Internet advertising agency. Her mother is eager to see her settle down; she knows a nice, single rabbi. Maya’s relationship with her boyfriend, Jeremy, is so lukewarm that she decides to post a profile on JDate, the online Jewish dating service. She hears from Aaron Schwarz, a commercial real estate broker. He owns his own firm, he explains, since he prefers being in charge, which intrigues Maya. Unlike Jeremy, who relies on Groupon discounts when taking Maya out, Aaron treats her to concerts, good restaurants and cab rides home from Manhattan. After Maya and Aaron become intimate, he confesses his real turn-on: tying girls up and spanking them while playing a kind of “Jewish Jeopardy,” asking “questions that would be considered common knowledge to someone who has a reasonable grounding in Judaica.” Wrong guesses earn smacks from Aaron’s belt, then tempestuous sex, which shakes up Maya emotionally as it wows her physically. With questions about dreidels punctuated by whaps, Harris does put a Jewish spin on Fifty Shades of Grey, but calling this novel a parody—an exaggerated, humorous imitation—is a misnomer. If anything, it’s more low-key than the original. Schwarz isn’t the mysterious, cold, distant mogul that Christian Grey is; he’s well-off but not a billionaire, and he’s reasonably, not ridiculously, good looking. Maya, meanwhile, is far more confident, sexually and personally, than the hapless Anastasia Steele; in the end, it’s Maya who offers financial backing to the man of her dreams. A parody it’s not—but readers may indeed prefer these alterations, which make this novel more relatable, funny and perhaps even more feminist than the original Fifty Shades.
A fairly amusing, sometimes erotic story of contemporary urban Jewish young womanhood.Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989192019
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Fifty Tales Media
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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