Scan barcode
pathfindernicole's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
catcrowcandle's review
Turns out that (as someone with anxiety), reading descriptions of other people's anxiety isn't something I want to do for fun!
nimbiboo's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
book_lizard42's review against another edition
4.0
I love Jean Meltzer's books. Love them. Hilarious, tender, covers chronic illness flawlessly and honestly. This one's ending didn't stick for me the same way some of the others have, but I still loved it. And I always learn a lot about Jewish tradition.
vibeke_hiatt's review
2.0
I picked this book up because it's part of my library's current readers' choice competition. It looked interesting as seemed like a good way to learn about a culture different from my own.
It starts out strong. I quickly sympathized with Dara as a fellow sufferer from anxiety (although it irritated me that she was obsessive about calling it "Generalized Anxiety Disorder," as though that's the only valid form of anxiety). I liked Chris, too, and admired his dedication to providing for his daughter. The first hundred pages or so led me to believe this would be a great story about relationships of various types on an emotional level.
But Dara's grandmother, Miriam--who I believed would be a central character to the story--suddenly disappears from the narrative. We are told that Dara visits Miriam every day, but we never see it. We never see Miriam's reactions to Dara's televised dates.
We are told that Dara and Chris connect emotionally, but there are only a couple of scenes that even begin to show this. For the most part, their attraction comes across as purely physical. The scene that bothers me the most is the hospital scene where Dara and Chris almost kiss. As soon as Dr. Daniel walks in the room, Dara forgets about Chris completely, failing to show any of the regard or compassion you would expect to see from a woman who feels any sort of attachment to him, no matter had budding it may be. She shows no concern for his feelings. We get the impression that whatever Dara does is right and if Chris sees it differently, he's being unreasonable. In the end, the romance in this book falls flat.
One thing Meltzer excels at is explaining the Jewish holidays and traditions. As I said, I was going to learn something new about a different culture and I did. I appreciated learning not just what Dara was doing, but why.
Meltzer's style makes this a very easy book to read, but if you're looking for a story with depth, you will likely be disappointed.
Note on content:
I searched online before reading to see if this is a clean romance and was told that it is (just don't ask me to cite my source because I don't remember). Although there is nothing very explicit that happens, the book frequently uses innuendo and double entendre. And, as I said, Dara and Chris experience a strong physical attraction.
The f-word is never used, but there are frequent uses of "religious" profanity (misusing the names of deity) which I personally find just as bad.
It starts out strong. I quickly sympathized with Dara as a fellow sufferer from anxiety (although it irritated me that she was obsessive about calling it "Generalized Anxiety Disorder," as though that's the only valid form of anxiety). I liked Chris, too, and admired his dedication to providing for his daughter. The first hundred pages or so led me to believe this would be a great story about relationships of various types on an emotional level.
But Dara's grandmother, Miriam--who I believed would be a central character to the story--suddenly disappears from the narrative. We are told that Dara visits Miriam every day, but we never see it. We never see Miriam's reactions to Dara's televised dates.
We are told that Dara and Chris connect emotionally, but there are only a couple of scenes that even begin to show this. For the most part, their attraction comes across as purely physical. The scene that bothers me the most is the hospital scene where Dara and Chris almost kiss. As soon as Dr. Daniel walks in the room, Dara forgets about Chris completely, failing to show any of the regard or compassion you would expect to see from a woman who feels any sort of attachment to him, no matter had budding it may be. She shows no concern for his feelings. We get the impression that whatever Dara does is right and if Chris sees it differently, he's being unreasonable. In the end, the romance in this book falls flat.
One thing Meltzer excels at is explaining the Jewish holidays and traditions. As I said, I was going to learn something new about a different culture and I did. I appreciated learning not just what Dara was doing, but why.
Meltzer's style makes this a very easy book to read, but if you're looking for a story with depth, you will likely be disappointed.
Note on content:
I searched online before reading to see if this is a clean romance and was told that it is (just don't ask me to cite my source because I don't remember). Although there is nothing very explicit that happens, the book frequently uses innuendo and double entendre. And, as I said, Dara and Chris experience a strong physical attraction.
The f-word is never used, but there are frequent uses of "religious" profanity (misusing the names of deity) which I personally find just as bad.
invisible_universes's review against another edition
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
It's not unreadable.
There are some really cool cultural elements to read about, and I love seeing the inclusion of some more nuanced and less mainstream Jewish traditions. I don't know enough about Jewish culture to say if she gets everything right, but it FEELS very authentic. I really loved that glimpse into another culture and the things you might not even think about being different.
Unfortunately, the same can not be said for the author's portrayal of anxiety. Dara, the main charecter of the book, is stated to suffer from GAD or generalized anxiety disorder. I feel strongly about this issue and the importance of destigmatizing conditions like this. I loved the representation here-- at least I loved it in theory. Meltzer's portrayal of anxiety on both a medical and personal level felt overgeneralized and vague to the point of feeling almost like a caricature. There are attempts to destigmify mental illness by being upfront about thr medical side of things, but Meltzer clearly lacked the understanding needed to write about anxiety on that level. Dara's symptoms do not align with her diagnosis in any meaningful way and would be better classed as a Panic Disorder than GAD. Her drug regimen, while not technically impossible, doesn't make much sense from a medical standpoint (If I saw a real life patient on her regimen, as a Pharmacist I'd be making calls to get that changed. That is not how these drugs ought to be used). At one point she mentions cortisol, which is indeed a stress hormone but doesn't spike and abate in the way she implies in the scene in question. The whole thing was just off, like the author had a bag of words associated with anxiety but no real idea of how they fit together or how to use them properly. The result is a lot of vaguely medicalized jargon that sounds official but is completely nonsensical. I understand the attempt to treat mental illness with the same moral neutrality as a physical ailment but throwing inaccurate diagnoses and medications at a charecter doesn't destigmatize the condition it just further 'others' it by hiding it behind words that no one is intended to look into.
That said, I could forgive medica inaccuracy. My mother read the book at the same time as me, and without a medical background the medical jargon didn't feel as glaring to her. Besides, this isn't a medical textbook, this is a charecter, and an honest portrayal of anxiety does not require a medical degree. Unfortunately, Meltzer also comes up short in this regard. There's also no real personal or social depth to the charecter's supposed GAD. There's the occasional mention of her being frightened by various things or feeling overwhelmed but the descriptions lack passion and urgency. Her GAD is blamed for things and there are long segments talking about how it makes her life difficult. But none of these segments touch on the actual feelings she is coping with or how it puts a slant on her perception of the world. Anxiety is never something the author bothers to unpack-- it's always there and often acknowledged but she never opens it up to let anyone see beyond the exterior. I'm all for quiet representation-- I would love a charecter to had GAD as a background trait that is acknowledged but not centralized. However, that's clearly not what Meltzer is going for. Dara's anxiety is a major focal point of the story, and I believe that if you're going to dedicate that much time and energy to an aspect of a charecter, it can't just be surface-level repetitions of the same handful of generalizations. If you're going to focus on it, you have to unpack it a little or else the mentions are just a constant reminder of something that sets a charecter apart without any call to the reader for empathy or understanding. It again reinforces the idea that diagnosed anxiety is something mysterious and different that is impossible for the average person to understand or even imagine-- on an emotional level as much as a medical one.
That was lengthy, but I really just wish the author would have taken the time to talk to a mental health professional or someone living with GAD before publishing this novel. The portrayal here made me want to tear my hair out every time it was mentioned.
Putting aside the issue of Dara's anxiety, she's not the most interesting charecter. There are some traits that contribute really well to the story but there's not a lot of depth there. The same can be said for her love interest Chris, who is a grieving single father and a TV personality. He is little else beyond that. They make for an okay couple and in general have acceptable levels of chemistry but I never felt strongly about either of them or their love story.
The plot is actually very solid and highly compelling until the end. The resolution is underwhelming to say the least. The issues that made the book interesting are not solved -- the charecters just decide to ignore them, which feels cheap especially considering the minimal soul-searching it takes to completely flip a charecter's attitude. There's no complexity to the book's ending-- it takes a well woven situation and instead of untangling it, sticks a platitude on top and calls it a day. There's not even the real release of a HEA-- the HFN ending with so many questions still unanswered just leaves things feeling unresolved.
Overall it's cute enough. It's a romcom and in broad strokes it does get the job done. Just in a way that left me low-level annoyed most of the time I was reading it.
There are some really cool cultural elements to read about, and I love seeing the inclusion of some more nuanced and less mainstream Jewish traditions. I don't know enough about Jewish culture to say if she gets everything right, but it FEELS very authentic. I really loved that glimpse into another culture and the things you might not even think about being different.
Unfortunately, the same can not be said for the author's portrayal of anxiety. Dara, the main charecter of the book, is stated to suffer from GAD or generalized anxiety disorder. I feel strongly about this issue and the importance of destigmatizing conditions like this. I loved the representation here-- at least I loved it in theory. Meltzer's portrayal of anxiety on both a medical and personal level felt overgeneralized and vague to the point of feeling almost like a caricature. There are attempts to destigmify mental illness by being upfront about thr medical side of things, but Meltzer clearly lacked the understanding needed to write about anxiety on that level. Dara's symptoms do not align with her diagnosis in any meaningful way and would be better classed as a Panic Disorder than GAD. Her drug regimen, while not technically impossible, doesn't make much sense from a medical standpoint (If I saw a real life patient on her regimen, as a Pharmacist I'd be making calls to get that changed. That is not how these drugs ought to be used). At one point she mentions cortisol, which is indeed a stress hormone but doesn't spike and abate in the way she implies in the scene in question. The whole thing was just off, like the author had a bag of words associated with anxiety but no real idea of how they fit together or how to use them properly. The result is a lot of vaguely medicalized jargon that sounds official but is completely nonsensical. I understand the attempt to treat mental illness with the same moral neutrality as a physical ailment but throwing inaccurate diagnoses and medications at a charecter doesn't destigmatize the condition it just further 'others' it by hiding it behind words that no one is intended to look into.
That said, I could forgive medica inaccuracy. My mother read the book at the same time as me, and without a medical background the medical jargon didn't feel as glaring to her. Besides, this isn't a medical textbook, this is a charecter, and an honest portrayal of anxiety does not require a medical degree. Unfortunately, Meltzer also comes up short in this regard. There's also no real personal or social depth to the charecter's supposed GAD. There's the occasional mention of her being frightened by various things or feeling overwhelmed but the descriptions lack passion and urgency. Her GAD is blamed for things and there are long segments talking about how it makes her life difficult. But none of these segments touch on the actual feelings she is coping with or how it puts a slant on her perception of the world. Anxiety is never something the author bothers to unpack-- it's always there and often acknowledged but she never opens it up to let anyone see beyond the exterior. I'm all for quiet representation-- I would love a charecter to had GAD as a background trait that is acknowledged but not centralized. However, that's clearly not what Meltzer is going for. Dara's anxiety is a major focal point of the story, and I believe that if you're going to dedicate that much time and energy to an aspect of a charecter, it can't just be surface-level repetitions of the same handful of generalizations. If you're going to focus on it, you have to unpack it a little or else the mentions are just a constant reminder of something that sets a charecter apart without any call to the reader for empathy or understanding. It again reinforces the idea that diagnosed anxiety is something mysterious and different that is impossible for the average person to understand or even imagine-- on an emotional level as much as a medical one.
That was lengthy, but I really just wish the author would have taken the time to talk to a mental health professional or someone living with GAD before publishing this novel. The portrayal here made me want to tear my hair out every time it was mentioned.
Putting aside the issue of Dara's anxiety, she's not the most interesting charecter. There are some traits that contribute really well to the story but there's not a lot of depth there. The same can be said for her love interest Chris, who is a grieving single father and a TV personality. He is little else beyond that. They make for an okay couple and in general have acceptable levels of chemistry but I never felt strongly about either of them or their love story.
The plot is actually very solid and highly compelling until the end. The resolution is underwhelming to say the least.
Overall it's cute enough. It's a romcom and in broad strokes it does get the job done. Just in a way that left me low-level annoyed most of the time I was reading it.
lannklein's review against another edition
3.25
I appreciated the realistic look at dating in Jewish culture, but there was just something missing to make it an engaging story. I think it may have been that at times the book came off like a lecture or textbook when explaining culture. I felt I had to push myself to continue reading quite a few times.
rochelleisreading's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders and Death
Moderate: Mental illness, Sexual content, and Grief
debwendler's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75