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A review by laurenabayne
The Two Wrong Halves of Ruby Taylor by Amanda Panitch
3.0
Mark Twain Reader Selector
Rating: 7/10
Should it be a Mark Twain next year? Maybe.
As a Jewish child, I very much appreciated the use of Jewish mythology in this. It is a mythology not often explored; I actually had no idea what a dybbuk was before reading this, since we never learned about mythology in Sunday School. Unfortunately, this story gets bogged down in the fact that Ruby is just not a likeable protagonist. She willingly goes along with a demon because it makes her cousin less "perfect," without really showing care for her cousin. She constantly ditches Sarah, and even towards the end she is still obsessed with her grandmother's approval. I wish there was more growth for Ruby, since there was clear growth for Sarah and for the dybbuk.
It makes me think that Ruby would be good friends with Hugo from "One Kid's Trash."
Rating: 7/10
Should it be a Mark Twain next year? Maybe.
As a Jewish child, I very much appreciated the use of Jewish mythology in this. It is a mythology not often explored; I actually had no idea what a dybbuk was before reading this, since we never learned about mythology in Sunday School. Unfortunately, this story gets bogged down in the fact that Ruby is just not a likeable protagonist. She willingly goes along with a demon because it makes her cousin less "perfect," without really showing care for her cousin. She constantly ditches Sarah, and even towards the end she is still obsessed with her grandmother's approval. I wish there was more growth for Ruby, since there was clear growth for Sarah and for the dybbuk.
It makes me think that Ruby would be good friends with Hugo from "One Kid's Trash."