Matthue Roth

Reviewed by Long Nguyen for TeensReadToo.com

Yeah, Hava Aaronson is an Orthodox Jew.

Yes, she attends a pretty gritty Jewish private school, and her life seems pretty complicated at times.

No, you shouldn't assume anything about her for even one second.

Hava, a seventeen-year-old Orthodox Jew living in New York, is going to spend the summer in Hollywood filming for a television series about the "comedic life" of an Orthodox family. Little does she know that she is the only Jewish person in the show more cast of this show--about a Jewish family.

In his debut novel, Matthue Roth portrays the thoughts of a teenage Jewgirl in stunning fashion, giving the readers great dialogue as well as utterly believable internal monologue. Hava is a character whose haywire thoughts and coming-of-age realizations are completely understandable and make the novel even more cool and fun.

Complementing the hilarious narrative are the stream of characters Hava is forced to interact with and the situations she manages to get herself into. Roth portrays Hollywood life through the eyes of a devout Jewish girl raised in New York in an almost satirical fashion, yet it is dead on and only makes everything even funnier and keeps the pages turning quickly.

Along the way, readers learn more than they probably ever knew about the Jewish religion and culture. Roth is able to tell a great story and at the same time push through some food for thought to his readers about the overlooked religion, as well as comparison from secular and orthodox lifestyles.

Hilarious characters, embarrassing and awkward adventures, Shabbos at Blue Hebrew House in Berkeley, the filming process of a three month long movie [no jokes here, three months long], and the introduction of a new kind of voice from a different kind of heroine in this crowded world, is just a taste of the fun you'll have while reading NEVER MIND THE GOLDBERGS. show less

I want to give this more than 3-stars, but just can't. The urge to up the stars comes from my happiness that this book exists. A book coming from the perspective of a 21st Century Modern Orthodox Jewish teen is something I have not seen before, and had not realized I was missing. I liked Hava a great deal, and thought the book was at its best when in focused on her inner thoughts and her relationships with her best friends Ian and Moish. But there was a lot here that did not work, and some show more of it was so clunky and immature it kind of ruined the rest. The unacknowledged creepiness of Hava's relationship with Charles, the weirdly contrived live action sex tape scene (why on Earth would Charles have done that, and did he get the show crew to set it up?), the absurd and cloying "osser" baby (this was not a book that needed a Greek chorus of any kind, let alone a baby.) The whole ending with the producers was absurd and just bad, and played into the Elders of Zion myth that behind the curtain there are a bunch of Jews controlling everything. I was baffled by the eventual centrality of Hava's fractured relationship with her mother which was not even mentioned for the first half of the book, and not ever properly set up (unless you count a sudden exposition on how bad the relationship is as a set up.) I went and read some of Roth's later online stuff and its better. This is a man in need of a workshop, but there is a lot of raw talent and as a secular Jew who has chosen to join an orthodox community Roth brings an interesting perspective. I hope he writes more. show less

A memoir about pursuing poetry, punk rock and Orthodox Judaism. I really liked this book, and Matthue, to begin with, but as time went on I get a bit bothered by his dealings with girls. Specifically, his desire to have relationships without touching—even hand holding is supposed to be out. He’s a cool guy—articulate, passionate and clearly a deep thinker—and I liked his friends and their oddities. In the end, though, I was still uncomfortable with his faith, and sad that he put so show more much effort into praying every day and so little in convincing the more conservative members of his synagogue that being queer was ok. show less

Hava finds herself suddenly hired as Shoshona on a sitcom about a Jewish family. Hava finds she is the only Orthodox Jew on the show. She leaves NYS to spend the summer before her senior year of high school shooting the series in LA. She thinks a lot about her religion and what it means to her as she tries to grow into the role of being an actress, being in Hollywood, and staying true to herself. There are colorful characters she meets along the way. Some of the plot requires suspension of show more disbelief and even though Hava is described in detail throughout the book, she remained a bit mysterious and I couldn't quite figure her out. show less