Good story about a woman looking for definition of self through an insular community with very strictly defined boundaries and gender roles. As well as a family within the community coming to terms with how culture needs to change or everything will fall apart; tradition isn't going to heal which cannot be cured.
Worth a read

Is it even possible for Naomi Ragen to write a bad book? I think not!

Some things about this book are five stars for me:
The careful balance of an honest look at an imperfect community and treating that community with dignity and kindness, the honest character development - the people in this book feel very much themselves throughout, the loving relationships that grow.

So why three stars?

On the other side of the story is an entirely uncritical eye on fat shaming and ableism and racism. These issues are thrown into the story without examination, at times making me want to condemn the book entirely.

So why three stars?

I think this is ultimately a book worth talking about - importantly including talking about it’s flaws. How it is that some areas are handled with such awareness and sensitivity and others with such apparently negligent … I guess bigotry … and how even that very reality OF the book is informative about contemporary Jewish culture.

I really did enjoy the story, but it is very hard to overlook the racism in the book.

I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately it took until the last quarter for that to happen. The plot was very predictable, the characters were not very well developed, and the big surprises fell flat. I especially took issue with the portrayal of non-frum and non-Jewish characters (especially the role of POC, Oy), even if it is in line with the way the ultra Orthodox would view them. Honestly, it would have been a much better book if the first half was condensed down it continued beyond epilogue.

This book had a predictable story and a fairly heavy handed moral message, either of which would normally turn me off, yet it was a 4 star read for me and the characters were on my mind even when I wasn’t reading. In the end it was a sweet and satisfying story. The inevitable conflicts and bumps in the road were resolved quickly enough not to be annoying, which they could have been since it was obvious how the story would end. It was lovely to read a story where the characters actually communicate. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

I was unprepared for this book. It's very gentle and slow moving (lots of narration and description), yet unexpectedly powerful. The characters are well-developed, and they are incredibly sympathetic, even when not likeable. As a gentile, I had never really thought much about Orthodox Judaism or the process of becoming a devout Jew and this novel beautifully revealed the push and pull, the light and dark of that experience. In fact, the love story between main characters Leah and Yaakov is secondary to the story of Leah's journey into and struggle with her new faith community.

The book is in English but includes a LOT of Yiddish vocabulary- some of which the reader could ascertain from context clues, though many words would be more difficult. There is a glossary at the end... which I didn't realize until I REACHED the end. That would have been good to know from the beginning (or even better- the terms could have been explained in footnotes, instead).

I was drawn to An Unorthodox Match by its cover (though, in retrospect, the cover isn't accurate to the story!). If not for the cover, I might not have read the book, and that would have been my loss. This was a lovely book, and I'm glad that I read it.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion, which I am always happy to give. :)
#NetGalley #AnUnorthodoxMatch

An amazing story about life, family and religion. Naomi Ragen did a wonderful job writing this book!

This is the worst cover I've seen on a book lately. Does not match the story or characters in the book at all. The cover almost made decide against reading it - but I'm glad I did. In this case, I guess you can't judge a book by its cover! :) Weird choice by the publisher.