Even though i liked the idea of this one, and did enjoy some of the writing, i found it a little bit too intense for me.

Dnf'd as the description doesnt seem to match this audio book. The presented main protagonist seems invisible

This book left me very unsure. It started well but honestly, it was a sense of obligation that kept me going long enough to finish it. The narration was excellent though from time to time I was unsure who was speaking. It just felt a little didactic for me and for me none of the characters were sympathetic and I simply didn't care what happened to any of them.

I feel the writer has promise so won't avoid him in future but this just didn't appeal.

Sorry!

Tovyah is the rebel in the family as he no longer believes in the Jewish faith. His grandfather Yoder survived the war but at what price, and after his death the family falls apart. Tovyah worries about his sister as her belief is literal and the family are unsure how to help her. He finds relationships difficult at university.

This well written and well narrated novel (I listened to the audiobook) makes you realise that not all families think as one about their religion. Often there is conflict for different reasons that can cause difficulties and hurt for 8ndividual family members. Religious beliefs are discussed openly as this family struggle with life.

Literal Literary Fiction Friction

🧡 This is part-family-saga and part-theistic-rumination with just a soupcon of romance. It’s thoughtful literary fiction about family dysfunction, religious realism, and the legacy of the Holocaust. In other words, it’s a total one-off. The nearest comparison I have is She, Her & It which was a sci-fi retelling of the Golem story and that link is TENuous.

💚 Listen to this for its incredibly sharp observations on religion, the supernatural, and family dynamics. It’s also beautifully written, with compelling imagery.

💜 While enjoyable, this felt, to some extent, incomplete. So many fascinating threads were left dangling, without resolution. Almost certainly in the case of the supernatural elements, this was intentional. Leave the reader to make up their own mind. But I don’t feel like I got to the core of the characters.
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SOUNDBITE

🎧 This works as an audiobook. It just does. Genevieve Gaunt’s ethereal delivery lends the performance a dream-like quality, making for very easy listening and adding dimension to the story.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with an ALC in return for an honest review.

This was an absorbing audiobook. The characters in the Rosenthal family were fascinating and complex, and the narrator was great.

3,5 - This certainly kept me interested, but ultimately left me slightly dissatisfied.

It is the story of the siblings Tovyah and Elsie, growing up in a religious Jewish household in London and starting to rebel against their parents each in their own way.

As the brilliant but insufferable Tolvyah moves to Oxford, he meets Katie who takes an interest in Tolvyah, his enigmatic sister (who has gone off the rails for unknown reasons), and his famous mother - a career-driven memoirist that uses her family's real life experiences as material to the frustration of her children.

The publisher correctly says it has something of the Secret History and it's all very intriguing, but once I got to the end it seemed not that much had actually happened.

There are also quite some difficult and sensitive themes (holocaust, Jewish mysticism, mental health) that for me should be treated with care, not just as plot-devices - mostly they were handled well and explained clearly, but not always.

Many thanks to the publisher for an audio-ARC via Netgalley - the narration was impressive as the female narrator was very consistent when different characters, including men, were speaking.

The narrator did an excellent job with this dark and unsettling story. The family at the heart of the tale were more complicated than you could ever imagine and whilst I was very drawn to Katie I never felt I got to know enough about her. The religious elements of the book ( and obviously they had to be the most important parts) almost overwhelmed it but somehow never quite did. I could never have left off reading it and I could have listened to the beautiful Hebrew passages all day never knowing or needing to know their meaning.

I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words for this one.
It pulled me right in, and kept me firmly in its grip, in a weird way.
I found Elsie fascinating.
The whole family dynamics in fact.
A very decent listen.
Narration was spot on.