512 reviews for:

My Name Is Asher Lev

Chaim Potok

4.2 AVERAGE

chancho's review

4.5

challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

scipio_africanus's review

5.0

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slow start, but so worth it. beautiful book

caleb_karnosh22's review

5.0

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

mere_blair's review

5.0

inspiring sad tense

piteog's review

4.0

emotional tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

kforney's review

5.0

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Loved the writing style. Was recommended by my parents who both loved the book. I took an art history class the past year, and it played to my love of that.  

nbrenchley's review

4.0

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I have an entire page of Hebrew or Yiddish words I still need to look up! Despite that, this story drew me in from the beginning. We follow the life of young Asher who is an artistic genius, which is a bit frowned on in his Jewish community. This was an amazing story of being true to yourself, questioning instead of following blindly and the power of religion and art.

tirelpet's review

4.25

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

poachedeggs's review against another edition

5.0

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I read this book with a lump of something or other pulsing against the inside of my forehead. It felt like my brain was growing, or maybe it was sad, or maybe it was trying to escape the confines of my skin in order to grow itself a new master because it had imagination-envy.

My impoverished reconstruction:
- Art
- Orthodox Judaism
- Mission
- Truth
- Parental love
- Parental vulnerability
- Prostitution
- Pain
- Religion
- The history of art

I need to go and re-read [b:The Chosen|1258325|The Chosen|Chaim Potok|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182310466s/1258325.jpg|1336083]. I need to read [b:The Gift of Asher Lev|11502|The Gift of Asher Lev|Chaim Potok|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166479791s/11502.jpg|940793]. And I need to think about how to cultivate my soul.

zombi's review

5.0

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Potok once stated that of all his fictional characters, Asher Lev was the one with whom he identified the most.

My Name is Asher Lev was recommended to me by my friend Tessa during our junior year in high school. It is the story of Asher Lev, a boy born with a prodigious artistic ability into a Hasidic Jewish family in 1940s Brooklyn. The book is replete with powerful imagery and introspective phrases, linking religions and art and family and love and hate.

Interesting to note, the first "Brooklyn Crucifixion", a work by Asher which plays a central role in the novel's conclusion, is an actual painting by Potok himself.