Delve into the world of Hasidic Judaism, and the understandable dilemma of a girl who wants a broader future than motherhood and housewifery. Rachel longs for the trappings of the secular world, but more accurately, the option to pursue them or not. A great read.
I see that this book has won the esteemed European Union Prize for Literature. Remind me not to take their recommendations in the future. Maybe it's just me? But I hated every page of this dud. First of all, the author is a gorgeous, svelte woman. Seriously, looks like she should be modeling for Boden. That isn't hate-worthy, but she obviously has a deep-seated prejudice against those who aren't similarly beautiful. Especially in the area of padding. I couldn't begin to count the number of times she described some undesirable character as "fat", "pudgy", "pig". It became a game to me to try to find these descriptors, and Lovely and Lissome Lana didn't disappoint. The obvious judgment aside, how about learning some new words? There's this handy thing called a "thesaurus" which can fix you right up, girlfriend. How about "corpulent", "porcine", "heavy", or "husky"? Or let's even stretch our minds (and characters) further and come up with some other ways to describe people? How about "skinny"? "Withered"? Or "leathery", "grumpy", "jocular", "mumbling", "crusty" or "gangly"? There is a whole world out there that doesn't have to be described as fat. The mother was disgusting and fat. The annoying moms on the beach were fat. The creepy man was fat. Get. Over. Yourself. Beyond this, the characters in the book were completely unlikeable and I was hoping they'd have a car accident and we'd be done with the whole thing asap. Alas, I had to read to the end. What a colossal waste of time.
Some people sail through life, confident and assured that they're a-okay and if somebody has a beef with them, well, too bad for that person. I'm definitely not in that camp. And, as it turns out, lots of us aren't. Brene turns her wisdom to the topic of shame, perfectionism, judgment and self-criticism and does her thing that she does. Like an old carpet that we walk on in the same patterns, over and over, eventually wearing ruts into the weave and forcing ourselves to continue on those self-imposed paths, we can unintentionally steer our thoughts to the same unhealthy conclusions every time we have a hiccup in our behavior, conversations or relationships. Brene pulls out that old carpet and suggests maybe just walking on the floor underneath. Is it perfect? Nope. But you can go anywhere you want. You just have to know that you can. I read it in small chunks that I could ponder, little by little. Or, you can do it however YOU want to do it. No judgment, no shame.
