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mrella's review against another edition
2.0
I was so excited about this book!
Jewish characters, Hanukkah, unusual MC, trans* character.... and it all fell flat :(
There were too many unnecessary details, no chemistry between the MCs, no magic in the holiday, “trans” was mentioned once, in passing, just to have it there.
1.5 stars, rounding up for the cover, because I really really like it.
Jewish characters, Hanukkah, unusual MC, trans* character.... and it all fell flat :(
There were too many unnecessary details, no chemistry between the MCs, no magic in the holiday, “trans” was mentioned once, in passing, just to have it there.
1.5 stars, rounding up for the cover, because I really really like it.
mrella's review
2.0
I was so excited about this book!
Jewish characters, Hanukkah, unusual MC, trans* character.... and it all fell flat :(
There were too many unnecessary details, no chemistry between the MCs, no magic in the holiday, “trans” was mentioned once, in passing, just to have it there.
1.5 stars, rounding up for the cover, because I really really like it.
Jewish characters, Hanukkah, unusual MC, trans* character.... and it all fell flat :(
There were too many unnecessary details, no chemistry between the MCs, no magic in the holiday, “trans” was mentioned once, in passing, just to have it there.
1.5 stars, rounding up for the cover, because I really really like it.
andymariebrokaw's review
4.0
Rating: A giant pile of newly won Hanukkah gelt.
Highlight of note: It's a Hanukkah romance starring a golem. A golem!
Will you read more by this author? I plan to.
Other note: This is an adult romance but does NOT have explicit sex in it.
It's really hard to find full-length Hanukkah romances. That's why I wound up reading this even though its short length would usually rule it out for me. Adding other subplots or switching between points-of-view to show both love interests' sides of the story could have easily grew this into a full novel, but it does work as a novella.
For the first while, I had doubts about enjoying this book. The main character, Dave, is very much against the consumerism he sees in American Hanukkah celebrations, and bemoans this to the point that he's actively annoying. If it hadn't been for the early introduction of his mom, who made my heart warm by very clearly not caring one wit about what gender of person her bisexual son dates but just wants him to find someone who makes him happy, I probably would have abandoned it. I might not have had I remembered the bit about the love interest being a golem, but long enough had passed between me downloading the book and starting it that I had forgotten. It's not actually spelled out in the book (as opposed to the cover text) until about a third of the way through things.
So, yeah... Dave can be annoying when you get him talking about commercialization of holidays. But he's a pretty adorable geek otherwise. He works in a paint-your-own-pottery place and plays online D&D several evenings a week. I did find his relationship with beer unconvincing. Supposedly he's into craft beer, but he more than once drinks a porter out of the bottle. Yuck! When bartender Amit gave him a bottled porter and he started swigging it, I went, "Dude! A worthy love interest, or a half-decent bartender, would have given you a glass!" But apparently Amit was experiencing really severe issues regarding the spell that keeps him alive at the time, so maybe he was just too distracted to protect his crush from making Very Bad Choices. (Note: this is not just me being a snob. What you drink a beer from strongly affects how it tastes and nothing dark is good when funneled through a narrow neck. The narrow neck removes subtleties and sinks the malt profile, drowning them under bitterness.
Amit is really likable, aside from the whole didn't-give-his-customer-a-glass-for-his-beer thing. He's a golem, and worries about people who know that seeing him as a thing rather than a person, but he is very clearly a person. He was created by someone whose brother had just died as a sort of replacement, which is a bit messed up and I would have liked to get to know his creator more. The spell is starting to fade and part of the story is figuring out how to combat that. It actually gets solved pretty fast and it might would have been nice to spend more time working on the mystery of it. I think I would have liked to see what Amit is like when Dave isn't around. To me, the main advantage in writing in third person is that you can follow more than one character, so I sometimes get a little sad when writers fail to do that, particularly as exploring the way a golem sees the world would be really interesting to me.
It would also have been nice to get to know some of the supporting cast a little better. I already mentioned that I'd love to know more about Amit's creator/brother, but I was also rather interested in the other family members.
I did love this story. My only wish is that there had been more of it. There could have been more time spent developing the romantic tension, more time fleshing out characters, and more time working on the mystery of what was going wrong with Amit and how it could be fixed.
If you want to see the notes I took while reading, they're on my blog at https://andyreadsthings.blogspot.com/2019/12/hearts-alight-by-elliot-cooper.html
Highlight of note: It's a Hanukkah romance starring a golem. A golem!
Will you read more by this author? I plan to.
Other note: This is an adult romance but does NOT have explicit sex in it.
It's really hard to find full-length Hanukkah romances. That's why I wound up reading this even though its short length would usually rule it out for me. Adding other subplots or switching between points-of-view to show both love interests' sides of the story could have easily grew this into a full novel, but it does work as a novella.
For the first while, I had doubts about enjoying this book. The main character, Dave, is very much against the consumerism he sees in American Hanukkah celebrations, and bemoans this to the point that he's actively annoying. If it hadn't been for the early introduction of his mom, who made my heart warm by very clearly not caring one wit about what gender of person her bisexual son dates but just wants him to find someone who makes him happy, I probably would have abandoned it. I might not have had I remembered the bit about the love interest being a golem, but long enough had passed between me downloading the book and starting it that I had forgotten. It's not actually spelled out in the book (as opposed to the cover text) until about a third of the way through things.
So, yeah... Dave can be annoying when you get him talking about commercialization of holidays. But he's a pretty adorable geek otherwise. He works in a paint-your-own-pottery place and plays online D&D several evenings a week. I did find his relationship with beer unconvincing. Supposedly he's into craft beer, but he more than once drinks a porter out of the bottle. Yuck! When bartender Amit gave him a bottled porter and he started swigging it, I went, "Dude! A worthy love interest, or a half-decent bartender, would have given you a glass!" But apparently Amit was experiencing really severe issues regarding the spell that keeps him alive at the time, so maybe he was just too distracted to protect his crush from making Very Bad Choices. (Note: this is not just me being a snob. What you drink a beer from strongly affects how it tastes and nothing dark is good when funneled through a narrow neck. The narrow neck removes subtleties and sinks the malt profile, drowning them under bitterness.
Amit is really likable, aside from the whole didn't-give-his-customer-a-glass-for-his-beer thing. He's a golem, and worries about people who know that seeing him as a thing rather than a person, but he is very clearly a person. He was created by someone whose brother had just died as a sort of replacement, which is a bit messed up and I would have liked to get to know his creator more. The spell is starting to fade and part of the story is figuring out how to combat that. It actually gets solved pretty fast and it might would have been nice to spend more time working on the mystery of it. I think I would have liked to see what Amit is like when Dave isn't around. To me, the main advantage in writing in third person is that you can follow more than one character, so I sometimes get a little sad when writers fail to do that, particularly as exploring the way a golem sees the world would be really interesting to me.
It would also have been nice to get to know some of the supporting cast a little better. I already mentioned that I'd love to know more about Amit's creator/brother, but I was also rather interested in the other family members.
I did love this story. My only wish is that there had been more of it. There could have been more time spent developing the romantic tension, more time fleshing out characters, and more time working on the mystery of what was going wrong with Amit and how it could be fixed.
If you want to see the notes I took while reading, they're on my blog at https://andyreadsthings.blogspot.com/2019/12/hearts-alight-by-elliot-cooper.html
chickwriter's review
5.0
I loved, loved, loved this.
Purchased because someone rec'd it and I thought it sounded interesting (mostly due to the fact that it's not the bog-standard while Xtian boy holiday romance). Fell in absolute LOVE with the characters.
I would totally read more stories with these folks.
Purchased because someone rec'd it and I thought it sounded interesting (mostly due to the fact that it's not the bog-standard while Xtian boy holiday romance). Fell in absolute LOVE with the characters.
I would totally read more stories with these folks.
qace90's review against another edition
4.0
A cute Hanukkah romance~
This is a really cute, sweet story with some really beautiful images. I relate to many feelings David has about how his relationships usually don’t last and him being the common denominator between failed relationships, as well as feelings about commercialism and consumerism now a part of Hanukkah traditions. Growing up, I did love getting presents, but as I’ve gotten older the family time and, of course, the food is way more important to me.
I do feel some of the pacing with David and Amit is a little abrupt at times, and other times it’s sweetly paced. I do kinda wish the golem had been explored a little more, but the bits of information and myth we did get definitely added some depth to the story and Amit.
This is a really cute, sweet story with some really beautiful images. I relate to many feelings David has about how his relationships usually don’t last and him being the common denominator between failed relationships, as well as feelings about commercialism and consumerism now a part of Hanukkah traditions. Growing up, I did love getting presents, but as I’ve gotten older the family time and, of course, the food is way more important to me.
I do feel some of the pacing with David and Amit is a little abrupt at times, and other times it’s sweetly paced. I do kinda wish the golem had been explored a little more, but the bits of information and myth we did get definitely added some depth to the story and Amit.
susanscribs's review
3.0
2.5 stars. Interesting concept but the execution was underdeveloped and the romance was uninspiring. Dave finds out that the guy he's crushing on, Amit, is a golem - in Jewish folklore, a man created from clay - but other than that fact, we don't learn anything interesting about his existence, and everyone is so blase about his identity that it loses any of its magic. So many questions are unanswered, or asked and quickly dismissed (like the unsolvable dilemma that Amit is immortal and Dave is not). The author seems more interested in describing the Dungeons & Dragons game that Dave loves than in exploring the half-hearted fantasy he has created.
I'd love to be able to add this to the small canon of recommended romances with Jewish characters (and the even smaller canon of M/M Jewish romances) but it's just not strong enough.
I'd love to be able to add this to the small canon of recommended romances with Jewish characters (and the even smaller canon of M/M Jewish romances) but it's just not strong enough.
llamareads's review
3.0
While I liked a lot about this charming Hanukkah novella, for some reason it just didn’t grab me. Dave is an introverted nerd who works at his dad’s pottery studio, while Amit is the reserved bartender at his brother-in-law’s family bar – and also a golem. There’s some pretty cute things – from Dave’s crush being able to “power” Amit to Dave introducing Amit to D&D to Amit hating dreidel song (think about it). But while I thought they were adorable, I didn’t really feel the connection between them. The pacing between them felt odd, with their relationship going in fits and spurts, though I found Dave’s second date worries about how the end of the date goodbye is going to go – a hug? a kiss? – endearing. I also feel a bit weird listing this as paranormal, because while Amit is a golem, I think there’s more time spent on them playing D&D than “actual” magic.
It was also very low-angst, which I did enjoy, but almost to the point where I wasn’t sure where the story was going. There was a big deal made of Dave’s dislike of the consumerism and one-upping gift culture around the holidays, and while Amit offered one Hanukkah-centered rebuttal that seemed to sway Dave, it didn’t seem like it sunk in for him. Although, the low angst-ness also extended to its LGBT characters – Dave is bi and a supporting character is trans, and it’s all viewed as no big deal, which is always lovely to read.
Overall, this was quick and charming, but didn’t quite hit the spot for me. If you’re looking for a m/m Hanukkah romance, however, you should still give it a try.
“He could envision Amit’s reaction to the gift: a surprised lift of his heavy brows, then a slow, earnest smile. Inner happiness, though, even if there was no outward indication, was what Dave hoped to give. More than a little piece of kitschy-cute art. More than a social obligation. Something that would bring a spark of warmth whenever Amit looked at it. And wasn’t that the spirit of Hanukkah? The miracle of kindling a lasting light―hope and peace―from next to nothing?”
It was also very low-angst, which I did enjoy, but almost to the point where I wasn’t sure where the story was going. There was a big deal made of Dave’s dislike of the consumerism and one-upping gift culture around the holidays, and while Amit offered one Hanukkah-centered rebuttal that seemed to sway Dave, it didn’t seem like it sunk in for him. Although, the low angst-ness also extended to its LGBT characters – Dave is bi and a supporting character is trans, and it’s all viewed as no big deal, which is always lovely to read.
Overall, this was quick and charming, but didn’t quite hit the spot for me. If you’re looking for a m/m Hanukkah romance, however, you should still give it a try.
angstypickles's review
Cute, though my eyes were about to glaze over during the D&D scene. I would've started skimming if it had gone on any longer.
I would have liked more relationship development between Dave and Amit, too. As it stands, it can't really be anything more than a HFN, becauseit's revealed in the story that Amit, who is a golem, won't age or die in a human way, while Dave will continue to age as a normal human. So, I do wonder how a relationship would work between them in the long term. But it was a sweet story.
I would have liked more relationship development between Dave and Amit, too. As it stands, it can't really be anything more than a HFN, because
jamesflint's review
2.0
how does a novella drag so much
Rep: Jewish mcs, bi mc, gay li, trans side character
Rep: Jewish mcs, bi mc, gay li, trans side character
apostrophen's review
5.0
This was such a lovely little holiday novella on so many fronts, and I snuggled right into it. Dave was so easy to identify with: he’s a gaming nerd, so done with holiday consumerism, and frustrated at feeling the guilt of not being able to be “on par” with the gift-giving going on around him. He’s also just awkward enough to get in his own way, and overthinking himself out of confidence. In short, he’s adorable.
The dash of holiday magic here is in the Golem, yes, but also in the blending of family, friendship, compassion and the shared desire to give, but not in the consumerism way. That it also involved some Dungeons & Dragons, latkes and a little bit of golem magic just made it all the more up my alley. Also, the wide range of queer identities included here bears mentioning, including a bi main character, and a trans man supporting character.
Hearts Alight is completely charming.
The dash of holiday magic here is in the Golem, yes, but also in the blending of family, friendship, compassion and the shared desire to give, but not in the consumerism way. That it also involved some Dungeons & Dragons, latkes and a little bit of golem magic just made it all the more up my alley. Also, the wide range of queer identities included here bears mentioning, including a bi main character, and a trans man supporting character.
Hearts Alight is completely charming.