Dan > Recent Status Updates

This is going to take forever to get through, but judging by the intro alone, it is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

I’m no beginner to daily prayer or the synagogue, but I’m sure already getting a lot out of this, especially since this is from an Orthodox perspective and I don’t have much personal experience with Orthodoxy.

I like Marco’s line about how because Rachel and Cassie were there he had to pretend he was okay with the spider but that if it were just the boys there, he’d be groveling on the floor.

I must have internalized a lot of this when I read it at fourteen, because I see a lot of my own writing in this.

Yeah, Chanukah’s been over for more than a week, but I found this and it looked cute so here we are.

It’s a little heavier on the baseball than I’d prefer but still good so far.

See all they had to do was move this Christmas tree argument to the beginning of the book and Adam’s attitude throughout would have made way more sense.

I just don’t understand how Adam keeps saying Ben is sort of Jewish—as far as we know Ben is Jewish even by Orthodox halakha, so who does Adam think he is saying sort of just because Ben wasn’t raised in much of a community? I truly don’t get it—if the author wanted this to be an issue, why not establish Adam as Orthodox and make Ben or his mom a liberal convert?

I once saw a post talk about writing your characters like you want them to get a good grade in therapy, and that’s very much what’s happening here.

I was hoping to get actual hockey in this book, but all I’ve gotten so far is hockey players harassing the coach about his love life. At least tell me how the tournament is going!

I don’t understand these characters perspectives on Judaism. Adam assumes Ben isn’t Jewish because the bakery is kosher style rather than certified and because he doesn’t know sufganiyot is specifically plural? And Ben in insecure in his Judaism because he’s MORE traditional than the members of the congregation he attends? I don’t get it.

This author has a real hard-on for Shackleton—save it for when we actually see him do something heroic, dude.

This isn’t very good so far.

God Animagus transfigurations are so boring now that I have Animorphs to compare them to. “He had transformed.” Okay? Describe his knees reversing direction or don’t bother.

I love when kids in books are reading age-appropriate things in their English classes. This has the seventh graders reading A Wrinkle in Time instead of Lord of the Flies or Oedipus or something.