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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11507.My_Name_Is_Asher_Lev?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="My Name Is Asher Lev" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1216910027m/11507.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11507.My_Name_Is_Asher_Lev?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">My Name Is Asher Lev</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7385.Chaim_Potok">Chaim Potok</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8179381?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars Powerful. This is the story of a Hasidic Jew who is a gifted painter, a talent not approved of among orthodox Jews. His life becomes a struggle between his father--who tries to stir him away from the arts to more traditionally accepted hobbies all the while trying to understand him--and his need to draw to express himself, with his mother caught in the middle. 
 I could sympathize with all the characters in the book: his father for trying to hold onto his religious convictions without dominance but love, his mother for trying to love and encourage her son while staying at one with her husband, the mentor for his love and devotion to art, and especially Asher for trying to balance it all.
 
 Asher says this of painting: "I paint my feelings. I paint how I see and feel about the world. But I paint a painting, not a story." I absolutely loved that the writing style correlates with a painting style. Asher is non-descriptive about his feelings, only stating his replies to people's questions instead of delving inside his own emotions. Just a painting, the reader is left to interpret those for himself. The story is interesting and flows through the years smoothly, but it is the writing style that puts the book on a higher level. When the style can add another layer of description by making you feel Asher's love of painting, it makes the book beautiful.
 
 The story is intriguing, learning about Hasidic Jews and understanding their religious convictions as well as experiencing the aesthetic pull to need to explain the world through art. My one complaint would be that I still wonder what a few of terms mean. Like what exactly does Ladover mean?
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/542037?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Annalisa's review
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bookshelves: classics, favorite-books, historical-fiction

Powerful. This is the story of a Hasidic Jew who is a gifted painter, a talent not approved of among orthodox Jews. His life becomes a struggle between his father--who tries to stir him away from the arts to more traditionally accepted hobbies all the while trying to understand him--and his need to draw to express himself, with his mother caught in the middle.
I could sympathize with all the characters in the book: his father for trying to hold onto his religious convictions without dominance but love, his mother for trying to love and encourage her son while staying at one with her husband, the mentor for his love and devotion to art, and especially Asher for trying to balance it all.

Asher says this of painting: "I paint my feelings. I paint how I see and feel about the world. But I paint a painting, not a story." I absolutely loved that the writing style correlates with a painting style. Asher is non-descriptive about his feelings, only stating his replies to people's...more

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