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A review by tuna_fish
Starglass by Phoebe North
2.0
Weird book, though I'm not really sure what I was expecting. The whole concept (Jews... in space!) sounds like the plot of a Mel Brooks movie, and the peppering in of words like "oy" into typical YA problems made the novel unintentionally funny. The Jewish-ness seems to only be added for a novelty effect. The Judaism as portrayed is so utterly warped and unrecognizable that the author could have stuck any culture in and the book would have read the same.
The story itself is a mix between The Giver and You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, except replace "Bat Mitzvah" with "Obligatory and Mildly Creepy Wedding". I knew to expect some sort of teen drama, but it's bordering on silly when you have a bunch of sixteen-year-olds arguing about who is going to marry whom. Sixteen? Really? And, apparently, there are only two other sixteen-year-old guys on this spaceship, so our main characters had better pick one quick before her best friend gets the other one. This is the scariest part of the book.
Overall, the plot kept me reading, but once I reached the cliffhanger of an ending I suddenly realized I didn't care enough about these characters and their claustrophobic spaceship to read the sequel. And if you want to write about a Jewish spaceship, name-dropping Yiddish words and phrases like "bar mitzvah" does not automatically make something Jewish. Oy gevalt.
The story itself is a mix between The Giver and You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, except replace "Bat Mitzvah" with "Obligatory and Mildly Creepy Wedding". I knew to expect some sort of teen drama, but it's bordering on silly when you have a bunch of sixteen-year-olds arguing about who is going to marry whom. Sixteen? Really? And, apparently, there are only two other sixteen-year-old guys on this spaceship, so our main characters had better pick one quick before her best friend gets the other one. This is the scariest part of the book.
Overall, the plot kept me reading, but once I reached the cliffhanger of an ending I suddenly realized I didn't care enough about these characters and their claustrophobic spaceship to read the sequel. And if you want to write about a Jewish spaceship, name-dropping Yiddish words and phrases like "bar mitzvah" does not automatically make something Jewish. Oy gevalt.