January 10, 2006
Unchosen : A Review (Sort Of)
(The follwing review is half-baked. This is what you get when only two people ask for a review.)
The first thing that struck me, and it may be irrelevant, is that Beacon Press publishes the book; Beacon Press is a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Hella Winston does a wonderful job. She does a wonderful at job at giving us a look at the world through the eyes of her characters. I know many people who fall into the category of Hasidic Rebels and the book gives an accurate account of their lives, from their point of view. She accurately portrays her characters feelings and battles and she chose an interesting set of characters. I enjoyed the book immensely and would recommend it to anyone chasidish who wants to understand the rebels.
Any serious reader will find him/herself asking if some of the characters' issues do not stem from their society or community but stem from other issues such as disorders that exist in the outside world as well. I think that to an extent Ms. Winston is guilty of portraying some of these issues as stemming from the community, but she is definitely not as guilty as most of us make her out to be.
As an anthropological subject, shouldn't the book have the opposing points of view as well? I was surprised to see no interviews with the people within the community who are fighting the trend. I was even more surprised that she didn't write about the ones who have rebelled, gone all the way, and then came back. I think that to the outsider reading the book such a character would have been very insightful. I think it would've given the book another dimension that it desperately needs. After portraying such a good picture of leaving the fold, a reader wants to know how one can go and come back. I have a friend who grew up in chasidish Boro Park, left the fold in his late teenage years and ended up 'living the life' in Eastern Europe. Why did he come back? How is he accepted? What did he learn?
Another thing I was thinking about was along the lines of what the rebel wrote. Is Hella now friends with Malkie and her characters or was it all good for the book and is now gone?
Posted by notepad at 04:30 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 05, 2005
Unique is a Good Word
Breaking Point by Riva Pomerantz is supposed to be a “realistic, hard-hitting portrayal of a kid-at-risk,” You see, “The Fabers were always "one big happy family until their oldest son, Avrumie, dared to challenge the fragile walls that held their lives together.” Key word: fragile.
The book is supposed to be “A good tool for parents, teachers, friends, and teenagers who may be dealing with some of the issues brought to the forefront in this groundbreaking novel.” But I would have to disagree with that. If the story was real and Dina, Avrumie’s mother, would have read the book early on, it wouldn’t have changed her chinuch practices in the least. As the story progresses from Avrumie and Avraham Chaim Faber to just Abe; from a mussar shmuess with Avrumie’s father, to a heart-to-heart with Avrumie’s father, the patterns are clear: the parents are mechanech the children with the typical No Questions Allowed approach. If Dina had read the book, she’d have thought to herself: wow, some people have it so hard! My son is just going through a phase, he’d never do what this character in the book is doing.
I must congratulate Mrs. Pomerantz on the quality of the writing. I found less than five major spelling errors and she does a great job of making her protagonist endearing. One of the reasons this review is so half-baked is that I saw my own story in the book a little too often. The largest difference being that real-life stories don’t end so sweetly. In real-life there aren’t many parents who realize their mistakes, admit to it, correct it, and move on. We don’t live happily ever after, and we don’t pretend to.
The issue the book really should raise is the general chinuch mentality. If 5 out of every 100 children are not served well by the No Questions policy of chinuch, is that not a large enough number to consider changes? While it may be wrong to discuss certain things in class because 90 percent of the class is happy with Emunah Peshuta (?), shouldn’t children be encouraged to ask questions if they do have any? Shouldn’t Rebbeim, or melamdim by us Chasidim, have the answers to these questions?
Posted by notepad at 07:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 30, 2004
Pearls II
So you read the review and disclaimer and decided not to read the book. Here's Miriam with the entire book condensed into one, easy to read, post.
The Romance Reader
What a horrible, depressing book.
Ms. Abraham currently teaches writing. I hope she doesn’t forget to tell her students what she herself forgot—readers must like and sympathize with the protagonist. They are supposed to root for the poor girl who just wants out of the life her parents set out for her. Instead, I read about a conniver with impossible dreams. Books are also supposed to have a steady rise to climax, then a conclusion. This book had a series of conflicts, and then the line went dead. It ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Rachel is a Chassidish girl whose father dreams of grandeur as a Rebbe. Perhaps he craves respect from phantom Chassidim to make up for the lack of respect his wife has for him. Rachel is a dreamer like her father, but they want different things. Father wants to emulate the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement, while Rachel wants to imitate the characters from her Harlequin books.
Both see some realization of their dreams. Through hard work, living in poverty and with a shrewish wife, Father builds his synagogue (why Abraham can’t use the word “shul” I don’t know) and keeps expanding his vision. He meets with opposition from nature, from his wife, and from fellow Jews, but he is persistent. From a shack of a shul with an inconsistent minyan, to a steady minyan of plain workers, his ideas slowly bear fruit.
Among his obstacles is his daughter Rachel. Rachel who wants a library card, Rachel who discards her opaque tights for sheer stockings, Rachel who creates a scandal when the neighbors learn that she wears bathing suits instead of a jumper at the pool. Rachel who doesn’t want the life that her parents are laying out for her. The romance novels she stuffs under her pillows at night promise a life of silks, of men who aren’t afraid to touch, of a life where seamed stockings are irrelevant.
Her life is a series of small victories against her parents—the stolen books from Waldbaums, illicit talks with her friend Elky, eating on Yom Kippur, riding the train on Rosh Hashana, lifeguard lessons.
Rachel wishes her mother could be like her neighbor, Gita. Gita smiles and hands out cookies. Tova frowns, threatens to leave the family and run away to Israel, and yells at Father in front of the children. She is a cold woman whose rare smiles are brief reprieves from the tension she stirs in the household.
When shadchanim call about Rachel, her parents listen. It’s important for Rachel to grab a good one, a rebbishe bachur, both to bolster her father’s reputation and to provide a strong precedent for the younger childrens’ prospects. But Rachel’s past, the bathing suits, the stockings, frighten away some potential matches. Father’s insistence that the boy be rebbish turns yet others away. Finally, Israel (Yisrool?) gets past the radar because Father knew his family from before the War in Romania. Israel comes on a bus with his parents and grandmother from Brooklyn. His grandmother was expecting a L’chaim. Rachel disappoints after a short meeting with Israel; she needs time before her decision. Israel’s parents are generous; they agree to come back the next afternoon for another b’show, but after that they really must know her decision. After another short talk, Rachel agrees to marry Israel. She wants her Harlequin hero, but Israel and his blue eyes would have to suffice… for now. Even before her wedding, all during the preparations, Rachel plotted her divorce. And she got it, less than one week into a marriage that had already turned sour. Rachel was back with her family again.
And that’s how the book ended.
I wanted to sympathize with Rachel. She had a lot going against her. She was a sensualist in Chassidish clothing, a rebbe’s daughter who just wanted a “normal” life. She didn’t want to get married and have eight children, but saw marriage as her only escape from her stifling parents. But as I said in the beginning, I just couldn’t. Rachel isn’t a likable person. She’s too headstrong and selfish. Her parents aren’t all that likable either. Her mother is fed up with life, and her father doesn’t have his feet firmly set on earth.
All in all, an unpleasant family and an unpleasant book.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: cookie
DATE: 08/30/2004 03:23:16 PM
Thanks, Miriam. Great review :) Sounds like her anger and general bad feelings about her past cloud Pearl's literary judgment.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: rinx
DATE: 09/01/2004 10:40:07 PM
sounds like "abyss"-that new book... but also sounds like one of those they wouldn't have in a monsey jewish library-overstepped the line...poor rachel's family...rachel thinks living a chassidish life isn't normal?! well its more normal than the other lives i know...
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: the Shaigetz
DATE: 09/07/2004 01:12:43 PM
What a refreshingly honest review. I dont usually read novels written by orthodox jews because the tend to be so utterly boring and badly written. This one seems no exception and you have very dispassionately (it seems, me not having read it)called a spade a spade.
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Posted by notepad at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2004
Pearls
I recently read The Romance Reader by Pearl Abraham. The Romance Reader is a novel about a Chasidishe girl, Rachel, growing up in a chasidishe home yet not fitting in. While The Romance Reader is officially a novel, it really is the story of the authors life. I will try not to focus on the discrepancies between the book and the real history, because that will take up a lot of space and is not a point I am trying to make. In short, she wrote that book to vent her anger and frustrations. She is really just as self-centered as her father is and is looking to blame society for everything that went wrong in her life. In the book Rachel describes how her sister kept telling her she should know her limits and go step by step, while she wanted to take the entire staircase at a time. In real-life her sister settled down to a normal, yet not chasidish, life. While Pearl is still out there somewhere trying to find herself and blaming her upbringing for everything that went wrong in her life.
To the general public, the appeal of The Romance Reader is the glimpse into a closed world, namely, our chasidishe world. However, she failed at that as well. Reviewers such as Shana Mauer, did not see the book as revealing at all. “One begins the book anticipating a titillating view of a closed world that is hostile to the gaze of outsiders. However, in this instance, such expectations are unfulfilled and The Romance Reader disappoints. Where one would hope to encounter an intimate look at the specific idiosyncrasies of Chasidic adolescents, their family, and community, nothing more is offered than a cursory whitewash of that world, an account that could be easily gleaned frotext on Jewish culture containing the most basic overview of life within the many encyclopedia or confines of Chasidic Judaism.”
All that was not the focus of this review. When I read The Romance Reader, with little knowledge of the history behind it, I wasn't struck by Rachel’s shameless stealing. I didn't see the rude way in which she used her husband to get out of her house, I saw a girl slipping off the derech without thinking about it. I saw a girl without a backbone, doing whatever it is that came her way without thinking. I saw a girl eating on Yom Kippur without thinking “I don't believe in G-d, I can eat on Yom Kippur.” She ate simply because her hands touched a bag of pretzels! Yet she had no backbone. She didn't follow her dreams. She didn't leave the house and went to live her own life, she stayed on, got married to the boy her parents wanted her to get married, and then left him when he slept past their stop on a bus! Here is a girl letting herself be pulled by whatever emotions are pulling her at the moment, and blaming her environment for everything that went wrong in her life.
DISCLAIMER: I do not recommend you read the book, as there are parts that really do not need to be read. A teenagers dream is fine to have, not to read about.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR:
DATE: 08/23/2004 09:20:03 PM
What was your point in reading this book? This must be what "seforim chitzoinim" is -- a biting book by a frei person bashing our way of life. Did it make you grow in any way?
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Shlomo
DATE: 08/23/2004 09:26:05 PM
My point in starting to read this book was curiosity, as I know the family and I know the town. The reason I reviewed the book, is to bring out the point that some teenagers who “bum out” do so without any real reason and unjustifiably blame their environment for it. In general I am very much pro-at-risk-teens, but I feel that people need to recognize the difference between one who bums out, let's say, intellectually and one who bums out like Rachel in the story. Both types need to be helped, each in their own way.
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Posted by notepad at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2004
Against the Wall (III)
I would like to thank Miriam, my first Guest Blogger for the following review of Against The Wall.
...
She had the book Against the Wall, which I started on Friday night and finished on Motzei Shabbos. The title sounded familiar, and after reading the back, I realized it was written about by Shlomo and Cookie. I hadn’t read their posts on it too deeply because I hadn’t read the book, and wasn’t sure what I’d find inside the pages. I was ready for a Jewish style, Libby Lazewnick type, sappy novel where teenagers have melodramatic problems, then find hope in Hashem and yay, everyone’s happy.It wasn’t like that at all.
I got pulled into the characters’ lives. I sympathized and cried for them (don’t tell anyone).The situation was dramatized realistically. We were able to see the hopes, desperation, and frustration of all parties involved.. The parents did come out as the mean ones, though, although some did try to improve. In the case of Sruly’s dad, he practically made a 180 degree turn.
All in all, it was a book parents and teachers and teenagers alike should read.
I closed the book with a feeling of relief for the characters. There were more battles and disagreements with their parents yet to come, but something inside them was fixed. Something within them was healing, was calming down, and if they continued the way they were going, would go on to lead productive, fulfilling, and even happy lives.
One of the messages I gleaned from the author is that some teens just don’t have the zitsfleish or personality to stay in the yeshiva system. It is the parents’ fault for unrealistically expecting their underachieving/restless children to stay in school, instead of sublimating their non-cookie cutter characters to a more positive vocation. They practically force their sons into miserable lives, lives that the boys will do anything to get out of.
Undoubtedly, there are too many parents who force their children onto the “only” correct path for a Torah Jew. Others, like Sruly’s, take a high handed approach to raising their children. However, as the perpetual Devil’s advocate, I feel that the parents were underrepresented. Only the worst and weakest sides of their personalities were shown. They were militantly opposed to giving their sons a little leeway, but their reasons for doing so weren’t expained well enough. When they first saw their sons leaving Torah u’mitzvos, they acted out instinctively, just like their children did. Of course, I’m not condoning their actions, only noting that their motives weren’t given the sympathy they should have gotten.
What about the flipside? What of parents who try their hardest to connect with their veering sons or daughters, but don’t get a reciprocation?
If you would like to be a Guest Blogger on this site, please email me.
Posted by notepad at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2004
Against the Wall (II)
I will try to counter-balance Cookie’s five posts on Against The Wall. While Cookie is her usual perceptive self and pinpoints all the little things, she overdoes it sometimes: “I had a seriously hard time believing that someone whose husband is Jerry and son is Oved has a name like Malky. Jillian, yes. Malka, maybe. Malky?”
I don't know whether this is still true today. Drugs are a big factor in today's scene. They were not so common in the young frum world when I was in my teens, and what I've seen seems to indicate that when you add drugs to the mix, a brush with freiing-out turns much more permanent.Let’s not forget that drugs are an effect, not a cause. No serious learning boy that is far from the fringe will use drugs. Yes drugs will push a teen farther out, but we should be dealing with their issues before it gets to that point. I know many teen that fell by the wayside without ever using drugs. If I may use myself as an example, I was pretty close to ‘the edge,’ yet I never touched drugs.
Let me take this opportunity to remind you, teens on the fringe are not just at a risk of dropping their Yiddishkeit, they are also at a great risk of losing their chances of living their lives as productive citizens in ANY society. It goes without saying that from a Torah perspective, losing their Yiddishkeit is more than enough reason to worry and a life without Torah is an empty life whether you are a ‘productive citizen of society’ or not.
I always found it odd that a person would spiritually leave a community yet physically remain in it. When I was younger, I had pretty definite ideas about this. If I was being charitable, I attributed it to a lack of funds; you couldn't make it on your own two feet in the real world, so you'd mooch off your parents, rely on your neighbors for a job, and do whatever the hell you please. What a loser. If I was being less charitable, I attributed it to a desire for attention. Look, in the real world nobody cares if you look like a dude. Everyone else can or does. You're only distinctive in a frum community, because you look so different.Here’s my try to shed some light on the above from a ‘been there done that’ perspective. While the two points Cookie mentions are real in a way, there are many more ‘colors’ to it. There’s the craving for love. Hashem created a person with a certain connection to family that no amount of hate can completely erase. There’s a subconscious hope for love that is a factor in keeping a wayward teen at home. The main reason, in my opinion, that they stay in the community at least physically, is friends. It takes a lot to transplant yourself somewhere without any friends in similar situations. You cannot transplant a kid who grew up with a privileged upbringing in upper-Manhattan, to a farm town in middle of nowhere. I think that if somehow five teens would get together and move to say, Phoenix, Arizona, a community would develop at an alarming pace.
Another thing that keeps teens in place is the bridges that have not been burnt. Teens get that feeling of belonging when they still have some connection to people in the community, positive connections. Keep the lines of communication open with a teen on the fringe in your community and you are dramatically increasing his chances of coming back to a real life, the life of Torah. You may say “Why should I give a job to a loser ‘vus halt by gurnisht’?” Or “how can I ‘stay friends’ with him, he will think I condone the life he’s leading?” Remember: their lives are not real happy lives, if you burn the bridges, where will they turn to when they get that pang of guilt? Or when they reach rock bottom? If all bridges are burnt, that little Hisorrerus Hashem sends once in while will do nothing for him, it will sent him farther into depression and cause him to stray even further. If you keep a bridge open, he MIGHT just turn around and talk to you. No, he won’t just ‘come back.’ But isn’t it worth it? There are chances that one of Hashem’s wake-up calls will cause him to really re-consider his life. If he has nowhere to turn to, if all the bridges were burnt, he will have no outlet. It takes a very loud bell to get someone to wake up and come back, it takes a bell much louder to get him to swim back on his own.
I may have veered off-course here, and I apologize.
To Mrs. Pearlman if she’s reading: Thank you for a great book. Thank you for touching on topics that have been under the carpet and trampled on for way to long. Keep it up!
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: a reader
DATE: 06/02/2004 11:25:11 PM
Excellent article. You really nailed it.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: cookie
DATE: 06/10/2004 02:17:15 PM
Sorry it has taken so long. Good call on the hairsplitting thing; I've been doing it all my life as far as I can remember. I save my cloudy vision for my kids so I can pretend not to notice every time they try to sneak something past me! Thanks to this, though, I will not post a piece of the next installment (about Sruli's relationship with his mother).
I will argue about drugs not also being a cause.
Here, I am thinking specifically of girls. This is a whole topic unto itself, because the dynamics of girls on the fringe is quite a bit different than boys. Briefly, and from one angle, girls are less quickly forgiven for their transgressions. A girl who is flirting with risk-type behavior and gets into drugs is likely to damage herself, perhaps even unwittingly, in a way that she (and probably the community) views as beyond repair. (This ties with what you said - "they are also at a great risk of losing their chances of living their lives as productive citizens in ANY society")
Once a person has given up on himself, we are dealing with a downward spiral that is very hard, if not impossible, to reverse.
In this way, I think drugs can be viewed as the determining factor in the girl's future. With it, virtually no future. Without it, a chance.
I got an email from a reader describing a boy she knew of who was on drugs at ELEVEN YEARS OF AGE. Is this not insane? Someone like that hasn't had time to become or not become a serious learner. His life has been messed up before he's even had a chance to start living it.
Which brings us back to the fact that the issues need to be dealt with before it ever gets to drugs. I cannot agree more with this, and any reader of my blog should know that I'm big on the emphasis I place on individuals and their responsibilities. That includes parents and our obligation to parent in a reasonably responsible manner. If this emphasis hasn't been obvious until now, it should become clear within the next few weeks, when I hope to be dealing with the disturbing parenting skills presented in the book.
Last, the "colors" you add to the picture are part of the dimension some people have a hard time understanding: that despite all the bad feeling, and the emotional distance, there is still that tug. Perhaps it is the desire for love, or for friendship, or for the aching familiarity of what was, but there's something that pulls the heart of a Sruli to get a train ticket to Golders Green...instead of Balham. And we are serious fools if we reject instead of reaching out to that.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Rinx
DATE: 06/23/2004 09:38:34 PM
youd be interested in "Abyss", its not written well, but brings just about the same point across...
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Posted by notepad at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2004
Books
You know the old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover?” I never listen to this old adage. I always judge books by their covers, at least when I’m in a free library. Distant Cousins by Eva Vogiel is one of the books that should not be judged by their covers. The cover design is great! The typography and design are top-notch. But why read fictional stories of courage? Isn’t it sort of an oxymoron? “Fictional stories of courage?”
Juggling Act by M. C. Millman is not a book about aerobics or clowns. It is the story of a Kollel Yingerman who has to take care of the home and write his wife’s newspaper column for a few weeks. While it is another one of those books that pit Cookie against Jewish books, I liked it. It made me laugh! How many books make you laugh when you are in a room by yourself? So while the writing is far from the greatest, it’s still worth reading.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR:
DATE: 05/31/2004 05:11:39 PM
thanks for the book reviews. what free library is there around here??
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: cookie
DATE: 06/01/2004 09:55:34 AM
Oy. Now I'm going to have to read it to see whether I can justify reading it....
I'm going to go into a serious rant one of these days about frum Jewish publishing. Something like the alleged music mavens keep giving us about Jewish music. But I'll try to keep it to one post.
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Posted by notepad at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2004
Against the Wall
I recently read a great new book, Against the Wall, by Ruthie Pearlman. It is a novel about three teenagers in Golders Green, London.
It is a powerful, painful novel with a very real message. While the characters aren't real, their trials and tribulations are very real. It is a story that never really ends, about a situation, at-risk teens, that no one is immune from. It happens in the best of families and is very often not a result of a dysfunctional family.
This is just a short excerpt of the first chapter:
Oved’s father and brothers looked at each other.
“What did we do now?” the younger brother asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand him anymore,” his father said with a sad shrug.
“Maybe you should have said ‘good Shabbos’ to him,” said the oldest of Oved’s siblings.
“Why? And make a point of the fact that he couldn’t care less whether it’s Shabbos or weekday?” his father said hopelessly.
“Maybe it was what he wanted,” the boy said with an insight far beyond his thirteen years. “Maybe he just wanted to know that we still love him no matter what he does.”
His father was silent. “He has to know we disapprove,” he said at last.
“Yeah, but you do still love him, don’t you, Dad?” the boy persisted.
“Of course,” Oved’s father said quickly. Too quickly. Deep down he knew it was true, though. He did love his eldest son. Oved was his flesh and blood, after all. But he hated him for causing the family such pain. And, most of all, he hated himself for not knowing what to do about it.
Helplessly, he shrugged.
“It will be a more peaceful Friday night without him,” he said at last, as he and his sons began walking home. “We won’t have to hear his music or television while we eat our Shabbos meal.”
All the boys knew that Oved never kept the volume up high enough to disturb them. He had enough respect for the family not to do that, at least. But they often felt the vibrations through the ceilings. None of them could deny that it would be more Shabbosdik if Oved wasn’t at home.
The walk home was quiet, sad, full of what-ifs.
All through the book Mrs. Pearlman does a pretty good job at describing the feelings of the teenagers as well as their families.
While the website claims "A groundbreaking and important book for every Jewish community, parent, teen, and adult alike." That claim is still open for debate. What happens when a teen who's still in a position that is way better than the kids in the book reads it, will the book have the wrong influence on him/her?
I never buy books, I always take them out in the library, but this is definitely a book I'm buying. After I read it a second time, and have given you a chance to read it too, I will write again and tell you more about the feelings the book evoked
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Commenter
DATE: 03/29/2004 03:30:33 PM
Totally amazing book. Well written, great reading and tons of food for thought.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Gishmak
DATE: 03/29/2004 10:15:37 PM
Wow! That is one strong excerpt!! Although I don't buy books often either ($$!!), this is one is definitely I will be on the lookout for, bli neder. Unfortunately, it seems it's a topic many of us can relate to. :(
(ps glad to get your new url!)
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Hocker
DATE: 03/30/2004 12:32:20 PM
I read the book when it came out, and while i liked the book, i *did* think that some things weren't too realistic. Stories like that don't always end up happily ever after, especially stories from personal experience. But Mrs. Perlman did do a good job of making the issue more publicised...
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Whatever.
DATE: 05/10/2004 03:30:21 PM
The title of the book is unknowingly controversial. When I first saw it I thought she was protesting the wall/fence in Israel
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: rinx
DATE: 05/19/2004 08:54:35 PM
Its stupid! theres no ending, I mean duh we know "whats happening out there", but hello? solution? anybody?
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Posted by notepad at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)