Christina (A Reader of Fictions)’s Reviews > It's a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories > Status Update

"Be Brave and All" - Laura Silverman: What starts out as a cute romance shifts to be more about political activism. Not bad certainly but not what I wanted based on the story's opening. Besides, I'm basically always going to want a romance above all.

"He Who Revives the Dead" - Elie Lichtstein: After nearly drowning, a girl goes on a Birthright trip to try to deal with her feelings and fears. Well-written but another one that was a bit too short for me to really connect.

"Some Days You're the Sidekick; Some Days You're the Superhero" - Katherine Locke: Set deep in fandom (a site for making characters Jewish, which sounds like an awesome concept tbh), this story's super nerdy and super pop culture. The references are heavily Marvel so I didn't understand some of them. Wasn't sure about the MC's boy voice, but otherwise a nice story with a focus on friendship and nonbinary people.

"El Al 328" - Dana Schwartz: So I liked the writing a lot in this story, but it didn't actually feel like a complete story? Some stuff happens on a flight and in a hotel, but it doesn't appear to mean or accomplish much of anything. I wish this had been longer and gone somewhere.

"Jewbacca" - Lance Rubin: Another story focusing on the various things Jewish can mean to people. Rye, the MC, feels like, though both his parents are Jewish, he's not Jewish ENOUGH because they don't attend temple and his dad's Buddhist and Rye doesn't know much about Judaism. It's a sweet story, but Rubin's humor didn't work for me personally.

"Good Shabbos" - Goldy Moldavsky: Two girls go on a series of rather silly Shabbos adventures. To a large degree, this one doesn't really work for me stylistically for purely subjective reasons, in that most of the humor doesn't tickle my funny bone. If it's your sort of humor, this will be a total blast. The omniscient narrator/footnotes are sometimes funny but sometimes provide explanation.

"Aftershocks" - Rachel Lynn Solomon: A cute story about an awkward first date with the family. There's not a lot of this kind of YA out there, so it's sweet how realistically fumbling the start of this relationship is; everyone doesn't get their awkward relationship practice done in middle school. Themes of mental health (anxiety/OCD) and being Jewish without being religious are explored as well.