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jillpadams 's review for:
Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
by Deborah Feldman
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.