Kaaterskill Falls

by Allegra Goodman

In the summer of '76, the Shulmans and the Melishes migrate to Kaaterskill, the tiny town in upstate New York where Orthodox Jews and Yankee year-rounders live side by side from June through August. Elizabeth Shulman, a devout follower of Rav Elijah Kirshner and the mother of five daughters, is restless. She needs a project of her own, outside her family and her cloistered community. Across the street, Andras Melish is drawn to Kaaterskill by his adoring older sisters, bound to him by their loss and wrenching escape from the Holocaust. Both comforted and crippled by his sisters' love, Andras cannot overcome the ambivalence he feels toward his children and his own beautiful wife. At the top of the hill, Rav Kirshner is coming to the end of his life, and he struggles to decide which of his sons should succeed him: the pious but stolid Isaiah, or the brilliant but worldly Jeremy. Behind the scenes, alarmed as his beloved Kaaterskill is overdeveloped by Michael King, the local real estate broker, Judge Miles Taylor keeps an old secret in check, biding his time....

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Historical Fiction, Book Club, New York, Religion, Contemporary

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Hello, Good Readers!

My new book "This Is Not About Us" will be published in February! You can order it here.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...

My novel "Isola" is now in paperback. This is a historical novel based on the true story of a young woman who sails from France to the New World in 1542 and is marooned on an island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

I am also the author of several other books including, "Sam," a novel about a young girl's exuberance, wonder, and ambition as she comes of age.

Jenna Bush Hager picked "Sam" for her Today Show book club and said, "Sam is about as perfect of a coming-of-age story as I have ever read."

About me: I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Honolulu where I did not have to wear shoes in school until fifth grade.

I now live in Cambridge, MA and I own boots. In addition to writing fiction, I read a lot and teach on occasion. In my free time, I swim and walk around the city.

I have four children, now getting pretty grown up. My oldest son (an economist) reads everything. My second son (a law student and grad student in political theory) reads mostly non-fiction. I'm working on this! My third son (an aspiring chemist) loves science fiction, fantasy, and history. My daughter (a user experience designer) enjoys biography and YA novels--but only if they have exceptionally beautiful covers.

I read fiction, biography, history, poetry, and books about art. I also enjoy discovering authors in translation.

When I was a seven-year-old living in Hawaii, I decided to become a novelist--but I began by writing poetry and short stories.

In high school and college I focused on short stories, and in June, 1986, I published my first in "Commentary."

My first book was a collection of short stories, "Total Immersion."

My second book, "The Family Markowitz" is a short story cycle that people tend to read as a novel.

Much of my work is about family in its many forms. I am also interested in religion, science, the threats and opportunities of technology, and the exploration of islands, real, and imaginary.

My novel, "Kaaterskill Falls" travels with a group of observant Jews to the Catskill Mountains.

"Intuition" enters a research a lab, where a young post-doc makes a discovery that excites everybody except for one skeptic--his ex-girlfriend.

A rare collection of cookbooks stars in my novel, "The Cookbook Collector."

A girl named Honor tries to save her mother in my dystopian YA novel, "The Other Side of the Island."

With Michael Prince, I have co-authored a supercool writing textbook. If you teach composition, take a look at "Speaking of Writing: a Brief Rhetoric."

If you'd like to learn more about me and about each of my books, check out my website:

http://allegragoodman.com/

Find me on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/AllegraGoodman

Or on Instagram:

@allegragoodmanwriter

And of course, you can check out the reviews I post here on Goodreads. Generally, I use my Goodreads reviews to spotlight books I love and recommend.

Reviews

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This "Our Town" was constructed with great care & written about simplistically. Which baffles considering how organic the characters come off as and how poetic the narrative is.

The only source of symbolism is wallpaper & house panels with floral motifs. That's it. Everything else comes from the simple actions and thoughts of the 20+ characters who inhabit the titular town on the outskirts of NYC. The Jewish summer retreat of magnificent beauty is only a backdrop to the people who both suffer for and become better people because of the shared faith.

There is Elizabeth, mother of 5 girls, who is negated her dream by the community's Rav, who has a prodigal son problem in Jeremy, the cold-hearted bachelor who has lost his religion while his brother, Isaiah must suffer as the obedient child no doubt suffers because of his father's wrath. Then there's Renee, a teenage girl who must please her parents & aunts (we see her future mirrored by Elizabeth & her hardships). Renee's father Andras' true loves are his sisters... not the family he's formed. There's a librarian, a hot shot investor who owns half the township, fathers, sons, wives, daughters. Everyone falls victim to the strict institutions of the Jewish faith... any deviations from it are punishable... but we also bare witness to what occurs if religion is authentic and if followers of it do the right thing.

This novel reads like a journal composed of several individuals because they share many things but all of their experiences are rich & unique. It is everything but pretentious--always a treat for the cynical reader (like me!).

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update: Kindle $1.99 special. This is an older book....but one of Allegra Goodman's great reads. I just bought it myself --and will now give my physical copy away to a friend. If 'Sara'? --Susan? Connie? Mary? others? want to consider this book for our next buddy read, I'd love to re-read this one.
-The kindle download is a good deal today.
........."Kasterskill Falls" is the more interesting story than the Allegra's new release, "The Chalk Artist", in my personal opinion.

.....................................................................................................................
I'm so excited Allegra Goodman has a new book coming out soon!

I read this before I was a 'Goodreads' member ---It was 'GREAT'!

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

i'm astounded that this is a first novel. i'm astounded that, while writing a first novel, allegra goodman didn't feel any pressure to thicken the plot and jack up the sentimentality. i'm astounded that she chose as the topic of her first novel a strict orthodox community in which nothing much happens except the tiny movements that make up life for most of us most days. and i'm astounded that so many people read and loved this novel.

this seems such a non-commercial novel. there is no glossary at the end, so if your knowledge of hebrew or yiddish or whatever is as pathetic as mine, well, tough. and really, nothing happens, except, as i said, life. the little things that make us happy and make us miserable. being fourteen and losing your best friend. being thirty and wanting more without knowing what more is. being an old man whose children have irreparably disappointed you, in spite of the fact that they are solid, good people. losing worlds with the change of the seasons. finding new worlds in a serendipitous and unmomentous encounter. experimenting with life. dying. being born. fashioning happiness out of food, walks, and other people. above all, spending a whole lot of time and energy retooling your relationship with your spouse, children, parents, friends; fine-tuning the infinitely complex knowing that you'll never really get it; giving it your best shot; taking failure and mediocrity with grace.

i don't know how you do it, allegra goodman, but seriously: you are my hero.

[reading is my hustle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this even more the second time around. This story about a small Jewish Orthodox community is remarkable. It is closely observed and breaks my heart with its many details about the human condition.

Recommended.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A finalist for the 1998 National Book Award, Kaaterskill Falls traces the lives of Orthodox Jewish families who reside in Brooklyn but who summer in upstate New York during the late 1970's. Allegra Goodman, with much insight, dissects their beliefs, their feelings for each other, and their struggles to adapt to North American life. Elizabeth, devoted mother and homemaker, wishes to take advantage of an opportunity for self-fulfillment. It shows the complicated character of the old rabbi, who is the patriarch of the family. There is also a revealing subplot of young girls establishing their own identity. Anyone reading Kaaterskill will have a better understanding of Jewish families in America.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book and was very sad when it came to an end. I read Intuition by Allegra Goodman first. Two very different reads. While I liked Intuition well enough, I liked this one even better because of Goodman's arrow-sharp read of her characters' thoughts and feelings. I love a book that delves into the characters' inner lives, but with restraint and precision. I'm not clearly explaining why I liked this book so very much, but I highly recommend it.

[Kkraemer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful, intense portrait of the small and specific that reveals the grand and general. It's a series of interrelated narratives of people and families who spend their summers together in rural New York, the followers of Rabbi Kirschner. The Rav's family is there and has been for many summers, as are the families of many of his faithful Summer after summer, the families gather there, and women keep their houses carefully kosher, men commute back and forth to the city for work, and children grow up.

Surrounding these summer families are people of different faiths (mostly, other Jewish groups) and the "locals," who are different from the summer people. The stories reveal lives who are living within a specific set of parameters and negotiating the space between them and with those who are outside of the group.

Beautiful narratives.

They reveal how all of us live both within our circles and negotiate the world beyond them, and the characters in this book are, to a person, thoughtful, good, and spiritual. Goodman is a brilliant writer who can bring the world, both inner and outer, specific and general, utterly alive.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Allegra Goodman invites the reader into a self-contained Orthodox summer community in the Adirondacks. This is a quiet novel that involves you in a special sect devoted to its ancient Rabbi and literal interpretations of the Torah. I learned a great deal about Jewish ritual and esoteric holidays. However, the heart of the novel is found within the individual characters and their different adaptations to the community and its ideals. I liked the author's respect for her characters and her appreciation of the strength of their commitment even as she explores some underlying stresses.

[Ann G. Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly could not put this book down. I must have been up most of the night reading it, to the annoyance of my husband. When I finished I gave it to him and then he understood. I love Allegra Goodman, but this is far and away her best. An astonishing portrayal of a world so close and yet so far apart; an even more astonishing portrayal of characters so real I felt I might meet them at any moment.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started slow and boring, but I read it since it was for our book club. Got better as I read further, but I ended up angry at the narrow, selfish, chauvinistic, patriarchal attitude of the leaders of that community-- and of many of the men who flowed so blindly. As I once heard, the only difference between oppressed and oppressor is opportunity and that certainly was evident in this community. Escaping from Germany prior to Kristallnacht, the Rav became as controlling and obsessed with HIS ideas of the right way to dress, eat, work, live as his former oppressors were. He stopped short of physical murder, but was a murderer of dreams. And his son who "inherited" the position of leadership appears to be even more so. Would love to have turned the tables on them.

I'm sure it was a well written book to have evoked such strong feelings, but that does not mean I LIKED it.

[Liz green · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with Brecken in that Kaaterskill Falls is slow starting, mostly due to an over abundance of characters, which is also its greatest weakness. It is difficult to connect to the characters, and while they each have different motivations and characteristics they do not seem to become individuals. The strength of the novel is in its intriguing themes: community, obedience, dedication, abuse of power, the word, trials of faith, comparing self to others, and family. There are beautiful passages, and interesting conflict.

[Brecken Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaaterskill Falls is slow starting, mostly due to an over abundance of characters, which is also its greatest weakness. It is difficult to connect to the characters, and while they each have different motivations and characteristics they do not seem to become individuals. The strength of the novel is in its intriguing themes: community, obedience, dedication, abuse of power, the word, trials of faith, comparing self to others, and family. There are beautiful passages, and interesting conflict.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book actually contains some really beautiful writing. So why 2 stars? I just couldn't connect with the characters. Honestly, I felt a little overwhelmed by the number of them and couldn't seem to keep them straight. An earlier reviewer said the book was slow to start... I must agree. I forced myself to keep going. The beautiful writing is the reason it got two stars from me. It is too bad... I had high hopes.

[jeremy wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a simple and beautiful read. i certainly never expected to learn about orthodox jewish culture from a book titled "kaaterskill falls", but there it was! in realistic character portraits, goodman showed me both the well-worn loveliness and the stifling constraints of a religious enclave. even though the histories of these characters are sparse, they are vivid and alive in their everyday dramas, and so they soon feel like old friends with whom you can savor life's simple joys (everywhere rugelach and challah!) and mourn its trials. inhabiting the minds of people who find their religion restricting (elizabeth, michael) and all-consuming (isaac, nina, isaiah) and empty (andras, jeremy), i felt all the textures of a religious life in a way that i sometimes overlook in the church, where people sometimes seem to fall smoothly on a spectrum of closeness with God. and through it all, to no one's surprise, something about the discipline and restraint of this perfectly ordered religious society appealed to me, even as i revolted and recognized its legalism.

goodman has a particular talent for isolating and filling out the richest of family tensions: the way elizabeth feels so acutely the smallness of her house- and child-bound world and tugs at isaac with her ambition; the way jeremy alternately hates himself for his own inability to meet his father's expectations and his family for their naked disappointment in him; the way andras floats sleepily in a marriage with a wife he neither loves nor respects and children he hardly knows, surrounded by religious waters he cares not to drink.

and of course, one last remark on seasons. their steady rhythm quietly permeates the lives of the kirshners (kaaterskill summers and new york winters and kaaterskill summers again), and i think that nostalgic ebb and flow has sealed it for me: i'm heading back to lands where i can find lazy golden summers and lonely white winters!

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

The Rav, spiritual leader of the community, makes rulings on legal questions, dictates the standards of the community, but he is no counselor or magician to his people. It is not for him to greet them all, accepting petitions like a king on a throne. It is not for him to pull happiness out of a hat, exorcise evil, or divine misfortune in the misshapen letter of a mezuzah. He hates that kind of superstition, and has even written that he prefers doubt and skepticism to that kind of belief. For the skeptic's questions may provide a ground for learning, but the ignorant believer cannot reason. He has written this, and yet he hates both skepticism and ignorant superstition. — p 99

Selected members of the community are portrayed, their hopes and fears analyzed, their doubts questioned. They all know each other, but each harbors doubts and questions. The depth to the characters carries the story. They face everyday dilemmas, no riveting or unusual events. The women are stronger than the men.

[Sophia Kreitman · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️
This book took me a while to get through (not the fault of the book), but it was a nice glimpse into the life of the Kaaterskill Falls Jewish community. Reminded me of the show, Shtisel, pulling the curtain back on a usually closed-off Jewish community. A nice snapshot into the lives of its residents in the late 1970s.

[☕Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ratings:

Writing 5
Story line 4
Characters 5
Impact 5

Overall rating 4.75

[Erika Dreifus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I *loved* this book. Just posted a review over on the Fig Tree Books blog, for a series spotlighting past winners of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award: http://bit.ly/2qzRBoS.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time I read this book, Goodreads did not exist. It's fitting, in a way, for me to be thinking back and wondering what my impressions would have been at the time, since so much of this book is about how to assess the past AND live for the future, and whether and how it's possible to do both.

The story is deceptively simple: a set of families who spend their summers over the course of three years in the 1970's in the town of the title. Throughout the 20th century, many New Yorkers went to the country in the summer, and many of them followed the pattern set in the first chapters: men working in the city all week and rejoining their wives and children on the weekend.

Some of the conflicts in the book are apparently universal, too. A woman seeks something to call her own beyond the confines of being a wife and mother. A father loves and resents his brilliant, independent older son while relying on his steady, devoted, but mediocre younger son. An older man finds he has lost interest in the younger woman he married; a teenager has a crush on another teenager who hardly knows he's there, while she obsesses about a girlfriend and panics about disappointing her parents; a real estate developer tries to win money and respect from the community and finds that one comes at the cost of the other.

And yet this book is Jewish to its core, both in the rituals and rhythms of weekday and Shabbat and the way each conflict is played out. Those men coming up from the city? They are racing against the clock to make it to Kaaterskills Falls before the sun sets Friday evening. That wife and mother? With five young children, she starts a store purveying the items the men would otherwise have to schlep up from kosher markets and bakeries in NYC--only to fall afoul of the new rabbi's ideas about his own authority. That rabbi is the younger son, who becomes his father's heir, while his older brother inherits his father's intellect and his interest in worldly intellectual matters but not his father's blessing.

The Holocaust inflects every story line. The father, Rav Kirshner, was a Holocaust survivor who with an iron will trained his followers to keep their concerns within Orthodox Jewish religious life (to the point that their children hardly know Israel exists--it's much too secular!), and yet he is aware that none of them now understand the world he grew up in, a world where Jews can read Schiller's translation of Shakespeare in German. The older man, Andras, is a survivor too, and he has no belief in God, but he observes the Sabbath, keeps kosher, etc., to be part of the community and to support his Argentinian wife's burning religious devotion.

How can you be true to the Jewish past and be a part of the American present? How can you live a life that's entirely bounded by a community and have dreams of your own? (The non-Jewish hermit woman in the woods only shows the contrast in deeper hues.)

I make it sound as if this is a book of ideas, because I'm a man of ideas and that's how I have to read it. At a completely different level, it's a set of interlocking stories about the people who live or spend the summer in Kaaterskills Falls, their secrets, hopes, and dreams. Now that I've finished the book for the second time, I will miss those people.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

“ ‘If I don’t work with large animals, I want to expose social injustice’” (42).
“Old voices that creaked and swung in rhythm, their long phrases like the screen door on the bungalow, closing slowly, partway, a little more, and then, with a long sigh, thumping shut” (52).
"But in his daily studies he still strives to understand, identify, take a text to heart, to reach through the centuries of commentary, those layers of response, and grasp a meaning that is strong, believable. And when it happens, and the words unfold for him and touch his life, this is a moment of great joy. The burden of decision falls away, and he is free, for he knows what he should do" (158).
"He has lived in this particular hierarchy all his life, moved within it as through water, slowly, but without a feeling of constraint" (203).
"It's as if she'd been spinning and then suddenly she stopped, and the world stopped spinning with her; the trees settled back into their places, the scattered house came back together, and the tilted windows slowed and squared themselves" (217).
"How trivial their life is. How insignificant. It is all put on. Tomorrow the week will begin. He will go down to the city and mind his business. He will work the days away, and the days will be light and inconsequential. They will slip through his fingers. They will mean as little to him as a handful of loose change" (230). Sadly perhaps, I'm identifying with Andras's view these days.
"To believe in God morning, noon, and night. To believe in God--and not only to believe in him, but to believe he listens to prayers. What would it be like to have that reassurance? That God would take an interest, and approve or disapprove one's life. How comforting to believe that one's life is significant in that way. That it is guided by God's will, and not left to chance" (230).
"What a marvelous object she is to them. A ship in a bottle. How did she get in there? How could she get out?" (237).
"She smoothes the back of her skirt where it always creases from the stool" (238). What a detail!
"'How are you? Nina told us there's been a rabbinical eyebrow raised at you'" (243).
"...she sees the letters in the book in front of her, and her lips move, but she is muffled by her own thoughts" (247).

[Stefan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodman takes us deep into this community of Orthodox Jews with confidence, honesty, and humanity. Her depiction of her characters' commitment--or lack of commitment--to religous faith and especially religous ritual makes their choices understandable, even relatable. The communty she describes is not monolithic, and I enjoyed the rich diversity of the characters' voices and feelings. Perhaps that is what made the world of this novel feel genuine, even familiar. The fractures in this insulated group of summer Catskill renters are as important as their shared values. Goodman's empathy for her characters and their efforts to navigate between fealty to God, custom, modernity, family, friendship, community, ambition, duty, fulfillment and love play out gracefully as Goodman weaves together her tapestry of life in Kaaterskill Falls. She seamlessly shifts between the voices and inner thoughts of dozens of characters, and I felt empathy for all of them: their hopes, struggles, joys, and disappointments. Those voices include the gentiles in the village who absorb the Jewish influx with a combination of suspicion, scorn, warmth, and welcome, sometimes all at once. Antisemitism is present, but not often explicit. There are few if any, highly dramatic plot turns, and the big "reveals" felt significant but muted. They were important, but they also felt like typical, recognizable turning points in the lives of any upstate New York small town going through a generational shift. The transitions inside and outside the Kirshner Orthodox community were compelling for me because I felt how significantly they impacted the lives of Goodman's characters. Their experiences all felt remarkably human, brought to life by Goodman's beautiful prose. I was particulalrly moved when Elizabeth, the central character, encounters the painting that lends its name to the novel. I was disappointed when the novel ended. I felt I had more to learn about the trajectories of these characters. Now that I was getting to know them, I wanted to spend more time with them.

[FoxRafer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was brilliant. Understated, moving, funny, warm, touching, eye-opening. Ms. Goodman so carefully introduces her characters, slowly reveals them to us, brings them to life in subtly beautiful ways. This community, whether in Washington Heights or Kaaterskill Falls, is vivid on the page. It was a joy to follow them over two years of their lives, seeing their struggles and joys, seeing the world through their eyes. I found this book to be both simple and complex, and she masterfully moves from one household to the next, naturally revealing more of everyone's part of the story in a deliberate but never boring way. I went from feeling great empathy for one character, thinking that actually they really were an awful person, and seeing them redeem themselves in my eyes at the last moment. And my heart broke for one character but seeing her find a way to heal her wounds was uplifting and inspirational. I fell in love with these people, have imagined what their lives were like after the book ended, and thoroughly enjoyed learning about a culture I had very little knowledge of before. A truly incredible book; so glad I chose to read it.

[LM · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was just lovely. Every summer, Brooklyn empties as many of the Jews in my community go upstate to
bungalow colonies for the summer. Having only been to two colonies as a guest I can best describe these places as Camp Mather family camp near Yosemite, except of course more orthodox, and totally different.
Anyway this book is set in the mid '70's and centers around the members of a colony or camp. In
Kaaterskill Falls though the members are not all religious or religious in the same way as colonies seem to
be now a days. There is a more modern Sephardic family, Rav Kirschner followers from NYC's
Washington Heights, reform/conservatives, and non Jewish, year long residents of the town are included.
This is very well written and I was only annoyed a bit when the author seemed to victimize a character who
knowingly made a decision that would cause a particular consequence.

[AmandaHeather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm conflicted about my feelings on this book...it's very well written, with descriptive passages that do very well at expressing internal emotions and bring you inside the characters heads. You come to understand not only the people of the community in the story, but the impetus behind every decision made.

However, I don't feel any different having had experienced this slice of their lives. Very little actually happened, and in the scheme ov most characters lives, the world just keeps spinning. The author is very clear about what happened when (i.e. July 1977), but the dates don't seem to have any impact on the story except in reference to one conflict in Israel. I felt plot lines were started up that didn't really resolve, but clearly the subtlety of these was what she was going for. In real life, everything doesn't just tie up neatly - but whether you'd like this book may depend on why you're reading: to escape reality or delve into it.

[Jo Fetsco · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many stories in this one book, but the main story is one of a community of Jewish people who live in NYC, except during the summer months when they travel to Kaaterskill Falls and live amongst other non-Jewish people in the mid 1970s. It tells of women and men who follow the Jewish ways of those before them, women and men who want more or different lives than their ancestors, and some non-Jews who are trying to carve out their own worlds in the midst of all this. It was interesting, but there were so many characters and the author jumped back and forth between them all that it became somewhat confusing. Good representation, though, of what communities have to go through when interacting and living with other dissimilar communities. Age-old themes of discontent with lives and with what is offered or available are presented in a new community for me, which was interesting.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interestng story that really didn't do anything much in terms of external plot. Most of the book takes place in the minds of the characters, mostly Orthodox jews, who are summering in Upstate New York. It offers a slice of life into a world that others might not ever see or know exists. The parts with the women were the most interesting to me and how the women followed strict laws that didn't really involve them. I wanted to see more happen, like a romance between the teenagers or the success of the kosher market. Good read for an airplane ride or chilly day.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a couple of books by Allegra Goodman so far, and have liked them both, but this book was the superior of the two. It centers around a community of orthodox Jews who summer in Upstate New York. And that is pretty much it. Things are resolved, or are not; life-changing moments happen, or don't. Just as in real life. Nothing strange or outrageous occurs -- it is just the story of the lives of a few people that we get to know over the course of the book, a beautiful portrait of a community and families relating to one another.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is a portrait of a group of Jews connected to a community of orthodox Orthodox Jews who live in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York, with a summer community in the Catskills. There is no one central character, and less a plot than a series of stories, none so dramatic in itself. However, the writing is excellent and the layers of meaning thick. The characters are neither romanticized nor turned into emotional talismans.

A good read for a quiet, rainy day, which is when I read it.

BTW, my college-student daughter LOVED this book.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I look for National Book Award winners/finalists and Kaaterskill Falls did not disappoint me. What a wonderful look at a closed Orthodox community with all the well-developed characters who migrate from NYC to the Catskill Mtns. for the summer. I especially enjoyed the friendship of Jewish teenager Renee and her Syrian, free-spirited friend, Stephanie; I could not say the same for Renee's mother who did not believe in assimilation. Yet another example of the young showing us how to get along with each other. Not a fast read but a really enjoyable one.
14 hours, 7 min ago · delete

[Willow Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about the lives, traditions, and beliefs of this Jewish community, and I think that this book is quite valuable because of that aspect of of it. However, the overall progression of the storyline was quite tedious to get through. It never left me wanting to go back and read more, it felt sort of...well, boring. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from reading it, because I do think that what we can learn from it could be beneficial, but personally, the way that the information was presented wasn't that outstanding.