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eldublibrarian 's review for:

My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
5.0

It took a long time to get into this book. After a couple of weeks of reading pages here and pages there, something changed in the narrative. The pace didn't pick up, but the build-up in emotions of the main character, Asher Lev, was so eloquently expressed to the reader that I was entirely wrapped up in his many conflicts. I found myself waking up at 5am with the notion, "Pick up the book!"

If I wasn't an Ashkenazic Jew, I don't know if I would have understood a lot of this book. It's very Yiddish-heavy and based in a lot of customs that may be completely foreign to non-Jews. However, I think as a work of fiction, it's universal in terms of the psychology and familial relations explored by Potok.

I want to read more of his books.