An often engaging Romeo-and-Juliet story with an unexpectedly mature and thoughtful ending.
A debut novel that explores the connection between an Orthodox Jewish girl and Protestant boy in mid-1960s America.
Like other prosperous midcentury families, the Greenfelds move from their cramped city apartment to a leafy suburb. Fourteen-year-old Adina has always grown up in an Orthodox Jewish home, but her parents soon discover that “orthodoxy was not suited to the suburban lifestyle.” The girl tries to keep in mind her beloved grandfather’s admonition: “Jews are doves, Adina. You are a dove. The rest of the world is fishes.” But she’s intrigued by friendly, charming classmate Jack, who makes her feel welcome at her new secular school. Jack is even more interested in Adina—not just because of her beauty, but also her intelligence and ability to put him in his place. He feels drawn to the Greenfeld family, whose affection, zingy debates, good food and strong traditions contrast strongly with his own cold, distant, materialistic and superficially Christian parents. But after he gains Adina’s trust, he starts avoiding her without explanation, leaving Adina to renew her commitment to Orthodox Judaism. Years later, he contacts her with a final request, and she must decide how to respond. In her debut novel, Verhoeff skillfully depicts the affinities and clashes between cultures, and the shades of difference between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, without ever sounding like a sociology professor. The heavy emphasis on Adina’s and Jack’s attractiveness, though, actually undercuts the love story: What’s so surprising about two beautiful people falling for each other? Even Isaac, the Jewish man Adina meets in college, is “comforting” and “pleasant,” but, more to the point, also “extremely handsome. Ruggedly so.” The contrast between cold Protestants and warm Jews also seems like a bit of cliché. Nevertheless, Jack and Adina’s final scenes are compassionate, moving and insightful about the role of love in a God-centered life.
An often engaging Romeo-and-Juliet story with an unexpectedly mature and thoughtful ending.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482553369
Page Count: 588
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
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