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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
DNF. It was okay, but it confirmed my dislike for memoirs.
I learned so much from this book about the different ways Judaism is experienced and lived. I admire the author and am grateful to have been brought up in the Reform Jewish tradition.
I kept thinking about what Jeanette Winterson said about her autobiographical writing being fiction, how she herself becomes a character in the process of writing. Deborah Feldman on the other hand insists on the truthfulness of her account, and as I got closer to the end of the book, I began to understand why that is so important to her. The chapters are too fragmentary to be presented as The Truth, many of the characters and relationships remain only drawn in rough strokes, unexplored. Maybe the book would have benefited from a more in-depth exploration, a good 100 pages more. It is perhaps naive of me not to concern myself too much with the revelatory nature, as some critics have claimed, of her account. As it is, it works great as Her Truth, about 20 years of real life and experiences pressed into the format of a novel with everything that implies. I'm looking forward to reading the follow-up.
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
tense
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
It takes an incredible amount of courage to leave a fundamentalist religious community. I've known several people throughout my life who have left Mormon, evangelical Christian, and Muslim communities, so I come to this book with that framework in mind, and applaud Feldman for taking a stand for herself and her son, regardless of whatever else anyone may think of the book.
Feldman was young at the writing of the book (24), and her youth shows through in ways that show me where I've become jaded. She talks a lot about her feeling of specialness, and feeling misunderstood by parents and peers - for me, inherently teenage ways of thinking. I would love to see her write a follow up in a few years, when her son becomes a teenager and she has more distance from the immediate aftermath, and feel the epilogue in the 2013 edition is a great step in that direction.
For me, a great book is one in which the edges of the medium fade and I can get right inside the story without paying attention particularly to the language or the constructs. Her writing itself was very good -- rich with visuals and emotions, without being pretentious, or theatrical (beyond the natural teenager parts).
And selfishly, I used to live a few blocks from the Wallabout section of Brooklyn, and was FASCINATED to learn more about the inner workings of the Hasidic community there. I can't imagine how much dedication it takes to live a life apart, while surrounded by all the flavors of New York. What a wild place we're in.
Overall: if you have any interest in Hasidic Judaism, or extreme religious communities generally, I recommend.
Feldman was young at the writing of the book (24), and her youth shows through in ways that show me where I've become jaded. She talks a lot about her feeling of specialness, and feeling misunderstood by parents and peers - for me, inherently teenage ways of thinking. I would love to see her write a follow up in a few years, when her son becomes a teenager and she has more distance from the immediate aftermath, and feel the epilogue in the 2013 edition is a great step in that direction.
For me, a great book is one in which the edges of the medium fade and I can get right inside the story without paying attention particularly to the language or the constructs. Her writing itself was very good -- rich with visuals and emotions, without being pretentious, or theatrical (beyond the natural teenager parts).
And selfishly, I used to live a few blocks from the Wallabout section of Brooklyn, and was FASCINATED to learn more about the inner workings of the Hasidic community there. I can't imagine how much dedication it takes to live a life apart, while surrounded by all the flavors of New York. What a wild place we're in.
Overall: if you have any interest in Hasidic Judaism, or extreme religious communities generally, I recommend.
I was absolutely riveted by Unorthodox. Usually memoirs aren't my cup of tea and typically I will find myself skimming through them to find the best parts, but with Unorthodox, I found myself hooked throughout. I learned so much from Feldman's experiences and was fascinated by a way of life so different from one I've ever known. I loved her writing style and didn't want to skim at all in case I would potentially miss something interesting and important about her journey.
I must confess when I first heard about this book, I was mildly interested, but was turned off by the fact that it was a memoir so I didn't read it. When it came out as a Netflix mini-series, I was absolutely fascinated and watched each episode with my eyes glued, following up by researching online which parts of the mini-series were based in fact and which were embellished for television. Yet I still decided I didn't want to read the book. Finally, the Netflix book club came out which asks us to watch the show and then read the book and discuss. I watched Passing and watched the Netflix book club episode on it and couldn't wait for the next book discussion to come out. While waiting, I looked ahead to see some of the books/shows coming up and saw Unorthodox. It was then I decided to read it - and I'm SO GLAD I did! I definitely recommend this book!
I must confess when I first heard about this book, I was mildly interested, but was turned off by the fact that it was a memoir so I didn't read it. When it came out as a Netflix mini-series, I was absolutely fascinated and watched each episode with my eyes glued, following up by researching online which parts of the mini-series were based in fact and which were embellished for television. Yet I still decided I didn't want to read the book. Finally, the Netflix book club came out which asks us to watch the show and then read the book and discuss. I watched Passing and watched the Netflix book club episode on it and couldn't wait for the next book discussion to come out. While waiting, I looked ahead to see some of the books/shows coming up and saw Unorthodox. It was then I decided to read it - and I'm SO GLAD I did! I definitely recommend this book!
I feel like I have more questions at the end of this memoir than I did at the beginning, specifically about Deborah’s sexuality, her ex-husband’s infidelity, her relationship with her family now that she’s not ultra orthodox anymore etc. I stayed up late to finish this, and while I did enjoy it, I have more questions and I wanted more reflection on her life outside the Satmar sect.
I am quite fascinated with Hasidic Judaism so I expected to enjoy this. Overall, I did enjoy it. But the writing was a bit uneven and the author probably would have benefitted from more time to process everything. (7.5/10)
This story didn't quite live up to what I'd expected it to be. I guess the woman's writing just wasn't as eloquent as I'd hoped. But I still couldn't put it down, and learned a little bit more about the culture of the Hasidic community I live so close to.