A review by alisbooknook
When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson

4.0

This book got me back into reading after about 5 years of not doing so. Fair to say it was pretty good. The book is based around a Jewish family living in London called the Rubin family. The mother, Claudia, is a well known rabbi who's always wanting to keep appearances up yet struggling to do so. I won't give too much away, but there's drama, infidelity and some moments that leave you going 'what?!'. Although a lot of the book always circles back to Claudia, I feel as though her son Leo and daughter Frances are also main characters. Alongside her husband Norman whom is probably one of my least favourite characters. Frances seems to struggle/have struggled with OCD and not loving the perfect family married life. Leos struggle is with love, which is shown very early on in the book. I think Frances may be my favourite character and also the best written in my opinion. She's quite complex at times but I think she was left off on a good note. Claudia has two other children but I wouldn't say the spotlights really on them. As far as endings go, I think it was quite good, although I highly doubt there will be a sequel to this book, not only because this was released in 2007, but also because the ending didn't leave much room for one. Which I think is a good thing. There doesn't need to be another book. Although you are left with some questions, it's not enough to require answering. You get to imagine where everyones lives are at now and I enjoy that. My only criticism is that in certain points it could feel like it was dragging on. But I think that happens with most books. There's a lot of jewish terms that I didn't understand (I'm not Jewish) but there's a glossary in the back which is great. All in all, I definitely think it's a good read. Although it took me a while, for someone that reads frequently I think you could get through it quite quickly. Definitely give it a go!