The Romance Reader

I love this book! I have read it about 3 times now and I will go back again. This is a wonderful story of a young Hasidic girl who is strongly encouraged to marry and follow the customs of her faith but she longs to experience life on the outside of what her family and community expects of her.......more

If you want the woman's view of life in an Ultra-Orthodox community, kind of like the view from the sisters of the rebbe, you should read this book. It's familiar in so many ways to the stifling Confucian limits on Chinese women, and its description of a girl trying to get away from her loving famil......more

Rachel is the teenaged daughter of a rabbi in a cloistered Hasidic community. She's quite the rebel: she gets a library card, reads romance novels, wears sheer stockings, goes out without a kerchief, and wants to wear a swimsuit while working as a lifeguard (as opposed to an ankle-length dress). Thi......more

I liked this book a lot--more than I ended up liking Unorthodox. Curiously, they're very similar, though Romance Reader was written nearly 15 years ago. This one is better written, and ultimately, more believable--though it is fiction and Unorthodox is non-fiction. There's a part of me that can help......more

Ich hatte die ganze Zeit das Gefühl, dass der Roman schlecht übersetzt ist... Meine Ausgabe ist auch relativ alt, but still:/ Die Geschichte und die Charaktere hatten Potential, welches aber nicht ausgeschöpft wurde. Viel rumgeplänkel:/ Trotzdem wurde gegen Ende der innere Kampf von Rachel immer deu......more