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courtz531's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
This book surprised me. It felt honest and heartfelt. The author takes you "by the hand" and you are on her life journey with her. The book is well-written and revealing. The narration is excellent. Having grown up in NYC, I thought I knew a good deal about the Hasidic community. I do know more than most, but have added to my knowledge through Uncovered.
kdurham2's review against another edition
3.0
Leah Lax came from a hard childhood and found refuge in a religion that her family was a part of, but a specific sect within the religion with very specific ways of living. I believe someone who has a hard childhood finds solace in the structure of a very organized religion. She gets married at a young age and has many children and after she has lived almost a full life, she finds that her marriage isn't what she wants and she takes an interesting turn.
As a former religious studies major in college, I naturally have an interest on organized religion in all forms. I loved studying the correlation between the evolution of religions and the evolution of people and societies. I say all this because with this, I liked reading this book. I loved reading how a sect of a religion has tried to keep its ideals as the "outside" world has changed and may start "coming in."
I don't read a ton of memoirs. I like to read memoirs when I have an interest in the person or the "theme" of their memoir or life story. If you are a reader of memoirs, I would suggest this one. If you are like me and are interested in people and religion then you would enjoy this one.
As a former religious studies major in college, I naturally have an interest on organized religion in all forms. I loved studying the correlation between the evolution of religions and the evolution of people and societies. I say all this because with this, I liked reading this book. I loved reading how a sect of a religion has tried to keep its ideals as the "outside" world has changed and may start "coming in."
I don't read a ton of memoirs. I like to read memoirs when I have an interest in the person or the "theme" of their memoir or life story. If you are a reader of memoirs, I would suggest this one. If you are like me and are interested in people and religion then you would enjoy this one.
zhelana's review against another edition
4.0
At first I was worried I wouldn't like this book because the author wasn't born a hasid. It is something she chose for herself when she was a teenager. When she left the hasidic fold, she would still have parents who loved her, and family and friends to fall onto. Throughout the book, however, she describes trying so hard to fit in with the hasidim and then her father dying, and her strained relationship with everyone from her past.
It was still a little anticlimactic when she decides, after 27 years, to return to her mother and her cello and her writing. She has to start again learning the cello, but her experience of it matures, also.
Overall this is the story of a teenage rebel who got caught up in extremism, and stayed there for far too long, and I don't think Leah has much to teach us about how to get others to give up extremism. After all, we can't convince all the Saudis to become gay. But it is a powerful story about one woman's experience with extremist religion and finally, finally, after 27 years, her coming of age and becoming an adult in our society.
It was still a little anticlimactic when she decides, after 27 years, to return to her mother and her cello and her writing. She has to start again learning the cello, but her experience of it matures, also.
Overall this is the story of a teenage rebel who got caught up in extremism, and stayed there for far too long, and I don't think Leah has much to teach us about how to get others to give up extremism. After all, we can't convince all the Saudis to become gay. But it is a powerful story about one woman's experience with extremist religion and finally, finally, after 27 years, her coming of age and becoming an adult in our society.
xxstefaniereadsxx's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
This is the personal account of Leah Lax, a girl who grew up in a secular home that eventually left home and converted to become a Hasidic Jew. She goes into detail about the conversion process, how her marriage was arranged, and how she faced motherhood inside this religion. Eventually, she decided to leave this life to find personal freedom, and her reasoning for it was very interesting. I knew virtually nothing about Hasidic Jews before reading this book, and I learned quite a bit about it. I thought the book was boring, and it took me quite a while to finish it.
eleanor_hadassah96's review against another edition
3.0
I found Uncovered more interesting than memoirs in the style of Unorthodox, as Lax was born into a secular Jewish family and chose to join Hasidic Judaism, in which she remained for 30 years before leaving. I appreciated the unflinching honesty of the author when dealing with extremely difficult and personal matters such as sexual abuse and abortion. I also enjoyed the insight into how she raised her seven children in the community. I found the author to be a sympathetic character, but also had empathy for figures such as her husband Levi. I also found the wider message of the text, about how one reconciles contradictory aspects of one’s life story and psyche, to be quite profoundly worded. Lax is definitely a seeker, and for that I admire her.
There were however certain aspects of the story I would have liked more insight into, mostly concerning the author’s Baalas teshuva process. The telling of the earlier parts of her story is coloured by the retrospective knowledge that in the end it doesn’t work out, which I felt hindered my understanding of her decision making. Did she really think it was a good idea to marry a man after one date without making any enquiries? Obviously the narrative is from Lax’s perspective, but I felt that the honesty would have been aided if she had touched more upon the earlier decisions which she regretted. I was also a little sceptical that the situation at the end resolved itself as neatly as she stated that it did, with all her very different children accepting her. Nonetheless overall this was a highly interesting memoir which I will remember for a while.
There were however certain aspects of the story I would have liked more insight into, mostly concerning the author’s Baalas teshuva process. The telling of the earlier parts of her story is coloured by the retrospective knowledge that in the end it doesn’t work out, which I felt hindered my understanding of her decision making. Did she really think it was a good idea to marry a man after one date without making any enquiries? Obviously the narrative is from Lax’s perspective, but I felt that the honesty would have been aided if she had touched more upon the earlier decisions which she regretted. I was also a little sceptical that the situation at the end resolved itself as neatly as she stated that it did, with all her very different children accepting her. Nonetheless overall this was a highly interesting memoir which I will remember for a while.
heathervickery's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book. The first half was a little slow and I was distracted because the audiobook reader has done other books I read (that made it made it hard for me to envision THIS author and not the other one). It was a LONG book but really fascinating, raw and honest. I always love learning about other cultures.
bookishjesse's review against another edition
3.0
I want to give this book four stars because Lax's story is beautiful and compelling; however, the grammatical errors bothered me. I found the poor sentence structure distracting. I missed moments of lovely description because I was caught between commas as I tried to understand a sentence. I wish her editor had done a better job of catching these phrases that stop the narrative in frustrating ways.
I do have to thank Lax for teaching me a valuable lesson as a reader. I kept feeling disappointed that her exit didn't come sooner in the book. I wanted to know what the community thought when she left. Then, I finished the book in tears as I realized Lax's point: part of the heartbreaking irony of leaving is mourning the loss of the community that built your cage. It doesn't matter what people think anymore because Lax stood up to shame. I am grateful for her work.
I do have to thank Lax for teaching me a valuable lesson as a reader. I kept feeling disappointed that her exit didn't come sooner in the book. I wanted to know what the community thought when she left. Then, I finished the book in tears as I realized Lax's point: part of the heartbreaking irony of leaving is mourning the loss of the community that built your cage. It doesn't matter what people think anymore because Lax stood up to shame. I am grateful for her work.
elephant's review against another edition
4.0
This is a very interesting story about how Leah joined the Hasidic community when she was a teenager, married at age 19 and had 7 children, then, gradually, found her way out of the legalism and into the real world. As a former reading teacher and current assistant librarian, I love that part of what helped her to change her views was reading books in the library and taking writing classes. Like Leah, I also grew up in the Jewish community in Dallas, and although I am a bit younger than she is, and I was not very aware of Hasidism during my Reform Jewish childhood, I enjoyed reading about the same places and community that I grew up in. I received this book free to review from Netgalley and I recommend it to others.