The Matzah Ball

[EDIT: I've been reading other reviews as I was reminded of this book and I don't think I even got to the part where Rachel uses a joke about killing Palestinians as “flirtation”. That is absolutely fucking disgusting and genocide is not a joke. I had gathered the author was Zionist from some other throwaway lines in the beginning but this is beyond evil. I've changed my rating to reflect that.]

As starved as I am for Jewish novels, especially Jewish romances and Jewish holiday books, this was too much for me too finish. There were flaws I could look past - a LOT of telling and not showing - yet other things kept piling up until I simply couldn't go on.

I'll try not to spoil anything as I go, but:

- the sassy gay best friend & sassy Black best friend tropes rolled into Mickey. Not only was it cringey at best, the attempts at AAVE were BAD, and I'm not even Black.

- Rachel's chronic illness was a plus for me, but the treatment of Paul in-story, who has a visible disability, was really weird and infantilizing? It was jarring to read about a character promoting awareness for invisible disabilities while treating another disabled character like a baby.

- We're supposed to see Jacob as this wonderful, if broken and misguided, young man, but honestly he was oblivious and self centered to the point of evil. I got halfway through and the way he uses his money and power over Rachel to humiliate, control, and undermine her was at one point even triggering. She is incapable of escaping from him even in her own home because the narrative - and every character in it - are obsessed with forcing her into situations with him. It's not “romantic” when someone uses their influence to force their help on you no matter if you want it or not, and again, I find it really upsetting for a disability narrative to present that as sweet on Jacob's part. So many people with visible disabilities are touched without their permission by “well meaning” folks in public, and if they protest or refuse the “help”, they're often violently accosted or harassed for it. Presenting the idea that we should accept it as the intended gesture and any protestation is just being “fiery” is asinine.

- Continuing on this thread, the entire way Jacob approaches Rachel in the first place is awful. Without going in depth, basically he decides that because she doesn't spill her guts on their first meeting, she “deserves” what he does because she isn't “honest”. Nothing in the narrative ever makes him think he's not immediately owed her entire life story, including the chronic illness she's kept from her own workplace for over a decade. This idea that a romantic interest is automatically owed your darkest secrets is poisonous, and the way Jacob abuses Rachel and then barely apologizes for it just highlights how. Jacob is so oblivious to Rachel's feelings, so focused on himself that he can only view her and her life through himself and his own experiences, that he can't even admit to himself that forcing ANYONE to do what he had Rachel do is horrible, regardless of health.

Maybe there's some great aspect that I'm missing, but I just could not find any reason to continue on with this book. None of the characters held me at all; even Rachel, who I mostly liked, was ruined by her ableism and her interactions with Mickey because of how he was written. As a librarian, I can say for a fact that there are almost zero Hanukkah books written for adults, and it's really disappointing that of the few, this is what we have.

I immediately enjoyed the disability representation, the Jewishness of all the characters, and the overall pacing was good. That being said, I think it dragged a little bit at the end.

I am personally not a huge enemies to lovers fan, never have been. While I enjoyed this book immensely, I am still not a fan of the trope being used within the book, especially as the original conflict feels very contrived and it ended up in the space that I often feel that these books get to which is "If they would just talk this would be resolved rather quickly." Also I know a third act breakup is par for the course with the genre, but that being said, the first one where she quits volunteering at the Matzah Ball was fine, but the second one where he personally discovers she's Margot Cross and gets upset that she's writing him into a book made me actually groan, it was conflict to be conflict and that was not really doing it for me.

THEY WERE TWELVE!!! They act as if they were about to get married and Rachel left him at the altar and it ruined love for both of them for the rest of their lives. Also, why is it so important that the daughter of a famous Rabbi gets into a Hanukkah party to understand the spirit of Hanukkah? And acting like telling people a Jewish woman was writing Christmas stories was just like someone coming out of the closet was gross.

3.5 rounded up.

As someone that loves a good Christmas romance, I thought I would try a Hanukkah one and I really enjoyed it.

It was nice to see another holiday highlighted, the story was engaging and as someone who deals with chronic health issues, it was nice to feel represented in a book.

I'm trying out romance as a genre, I'm not a fan of romance typically so keep in mind my review is probably a bit bias because of that.

I think this needs to be trimmed down, it feels repetitive and that makes it feel stuck? I think the pace/plot could be adjusted to move along a bit more. I had my audiobook from libby on x3 speed most of the time.
I liked how the main character had fatigue syndrome. I have hypersomnia and I feel like we have some similar obstacles and it was nice to see that.
It's an ok read! Great to get you in the mood for the winter holidays!

Meltzer's writing reminds me of a Hallmark movie (ironic?). If you can get past some of the cheesiness, it can give you nice feelings.

This one was a bit of a stretch for me. The motivations of the characters seemed trivial and contrived (summer camp rivalries from more than a decade ago, desperately needing a Matzah Ball ticket for inspiration, etc). 

Also, I don't know when the phrase became “crashing symbols” (Chapter 10) but for some reason I doubt that would be as loud as “crashing cymbals”!

I'm really behind in getting reviews posted...finished this one back at the beginning of February...so this is going to be short and....well....short.

2 stars is probably being generous, but I didn't all out hate every part of this story, so 2 stars. The depiction of CFS was well done - that's the part that allowed for the 2nd star. The rest was meh at best, irritating at worst. I despised what was supposed to be the romantic pairing of the story. While Rachel could be annoying and over the top, what I really didn't get was why she bothered to give pretentious, spoiled jerk Jacob the time of day. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to root for them as a couple, but I spent more time internally screaming at Rachel to leave his immature butt outside on some sidewalk somewhere. never speaking to him again. Honestly there are 6 year old with more maturity than these two characters had when they were together. Made it hard to not throw this one across the room.

Very nice, Jewish romance novel set during Hanukkah. I enjoyed the Jewishness sprinkled in the story. I had to ask my Jewish husband what some of it meant :-D
And I would still like to know what Rabbi Goldblatt thought of Irving Berlin writing Christmas music.

I didn't like the “let's just misunderstand and overreact and cause drama out of nothing when simple communication would solve everything” trope.

Oh, and to people, who gave this book one star and said “This book glorifies the murders of Palestinians. Seriously disgusting and dehumanizing.”
You are lying. This book is about a Jewish event in New York, and doesn't even mention things happening in Israel, Palestinians, or Palestine, and no-one was murdered. Do you go around leaving one star comments on all books written by and about Jewish people?

After reading mixed reviews from people who identify as Jews, I decided to refrain from rating this book to listen to the invaluable complex reponses of those who are represented in the book.

I was expecting to love this one a lot more. There are a lot of funny parts and usually I LOVE me a good enemies to lovers trope. I also love a book that has disability representation.

However, the immaturity level of Jacob and the overall feel of Rachel's character just didn't fully work for me.

The narrator did a great job with this one and made this an easy one to listen to.

Yikes, jokes about the IDF aren't cool

One thing this book does well: representation of life with an invisible disability/chronic illness (both the author and the FMC have ME/CFS). I also liked the tone - this was a romcom in the actual sense of the word, not “book with an illustrated cover and unclear heat level that actually gets really dark” sense that it's often used these days. Not that that annoys me or anything.

Like I said in my placeholder review, I wanted to like this book more than I did. I am very much here for underrepresented voices in romance! Holiday romances aren't usually my thing but I liked the premise here! But I was really disappointed. The big conflict/reason for the MC's rift is one of those “just talk to each other” moments and also if Rachel and Mickey have been such amazing friends for so long you'd think they might have discussed this before now, and also they were twelve, who expects their camp crush at age twelve to be The One? They both have completely different interpretations of what happened back then, and it ends up with the MMC being pretty mean to the FMC in the early part of the book, which wasn't all that fun to read, even if he didn't do it with actual malicious intent.

Anyway. I didn't think the characterization was really there, either - this is technically dual perspective but it read more like an omniscient narrator than close third-person. I never really felt like there was much insight into either MC's thoughts on a deeper level. Rachel could've been a much more interesting character; I was really interested in her inner conflict about being the daughter of two prominent members of the local Jewish community and also a secret Christmas obsessive/romance novelist, but that was really underdeveloped and resolved in basically an aside at the very end that's not explained. I grew up in a close-knit religious community (not Jewish, but evangelical) and I thought that could be really fascinating as a reason for conflict, but it just sputtered out, sadly. I can't speak to the accuracy of the Jewish representation here, but I did want to highlight a review I found illuminating on that issue.

Also, this book does not bang (in the @HEA_doesitbang sense), which is fine if you're into that but you might want to be aware of. And in writing this longer review I've realized this is probably a two-star instead of a three-star book for me. Why do I always have more to say on the books I didn't like??

I really, really wanted to like this book because there are not enough good Hanukkah romance novels. Unfortunately, there were too many problematic aspects to give it anything more than a qualified recommendation.

It's easy to identify what did/didn't work for me:

YES to the lovely portrayal of Judaism as a religion/culture that focuses on family, community, and food. The Jewish Geography (the habit of trying to figure out what fellows Jews you might know in any given city), the long-lasting friendships made at Jewish summer camp, and the double-edged sword of being a rabbi's kid all ring true.

YES to having a heroine with a chronic disease who has made a life for herself despite her limitations. I learned a lot about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (more commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and the careful way Rachel has to dole out her activities to avoid a flare up, which can disable her for months. (Interestingly, ME/CFS is getting a lot of attention these days because of its similarities to Long COVID.)

NO to the stereotypical Black gay best friend. If you're going to show that Judaism can be a diverse religion, don't make the Black guy a walking cliché.

And NO (unfortunately) to the entire romance plot. First of all, the entire premise rests on the fact that Rachel and Jacob had a brief relationship that ended badly at summer camp when they were 12 years old. And we're supposed to believe that they have been holding a grudge/pining for each other since then? FFS, they were not even teenagers. I don't even remember the guy I crushed on when I was 12, and I certainly have grown and changed so much since then that I doubt he would appeal to me at all anymore.

And the relationship between them now is more frustrating than romantic. Rachel is bristly and secretive, and Jacob is frankly pretty much a jerk for at least half of the novel. There are numerous, unnecessary Big Misunderstandings that could have been avoided if the two talked to each other. There's a lot of slapstick humor as well, which never appeals to me. Plus one minute Rachel is talking about how overexertion can cause her to be bedridden for months, then the next she is eschewing a cab and running multiple blocks for the final grand gesture without any apparent impact.

There are other aspects of the plot that engaged and frustrated me, but I don't want this review to become a magnum opus. I wish I had liked The Mazah Ball more than I did, but I can't recommend it unless you are starving for a Hanukkah romance and can overlook some significant flaws.

ARC received from Net Galley in exchange for objective review.