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The Sisters Weiss (2013)

by Naomi Ragen(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0312570198 (ISBN13: 9780312570194)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

St. Martin's Press

review 1: Finally read a Naomi Ragen novel. It's a fast read but one can get impatient with the plot; Would a 17 year-old girl raised in the insular ultra-Orthodox setting, really, on leaving the community and staying with a cousin, hop into bed with the fist cute guy she finds? Would her aunt, [spoiler] who also left the Orthodox world and gave up her family in doing so, really respond to her niece as she does in this book? There is a tidy ending, though. And I did love the expression "frum fatale." Also, the role of "honor/shame" in the ultra-Orthodox world is seen clearly. Many non-traditional societies are dominated by honor/shame (as opposed to American and Western "guilt/innocence" culture) and it's crucially important to understand these differences as we engage h... moreonor/shame cultures elsewhere in the world. I enjoy Ms. Ragen's columns and writing about Israel. Her fiction, not so much.
review 2: This novel made me uncomfortable and that is actually a very good thing. It exposed me to what it would have been like for me to have been raised in an ultra Orthodox community in Brooklyn. Of course, I really can't imagine what it actually would have been like since being a Reform Jew, I am an outsider to that way of life. As Rose's friend Michelle states, "there are Jews and then there are Jews"- a sentiment I well understand and which Naomi Ragen adeptly conveys in this story. We are discussing this novel in September for my online book group for the blind and visually impaired community and as most of the participants are Christian, it will be interesting for me to find out how the settings, the characters and the story is experienced by the other group memebrs. less

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