From the Publisher
A splendid book.”—San Diego Jewish World
“A California girl chooses to enter an ultra-Orthodox enclave in Boro Park, Brooklyn, against her family’s wishes. Hidden secrets on all sides create questions and issues of how to belong, should you belong and where do we really belong.” —Ms. Magazine, "Eight Books That Will Transport You"
“Ragen packs this novel with complex characters, many given backstories that increase the understanding of current choices. [She] provides a depth of details about daily life and philosophy behind Orthodox traditions as a natural extension of the story but also allows readers a glimpse into a world most would never experience.” —Library Journal
“Reading Naomi Ragen is like having a warm visit with an old friend, complete with tea and rugelach....In An Unorthodox Match, as the title implies, a little rebellion goes a long way, and Ragen deftly guides us through these moral quandaries. Whether love or the law prevails, her novel and its conclusion is a worthy study in the richness and variety of our enduring people.” —Jewish Book Council
“Ragen asks why a secular Jewish woman might join an Orthodox community and whether it would be possible for her to find not only acceptance, but family.” —Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
2019-07-01
In her latest novel, Ragen (The Devil in Jerusalem, 2015, etc.) asks why a secular Jewish woman might join an Orthodox community and whether it would be possible for her to find not only acceptance, but family.
The daughter of a godless single mother who ran away from her own Orthodox Jewish upbringing as a teenager, Leah (born Lola) has been searching for religious meaning most of her life. After two serious romances end disastrously, she becomes a baalas teshuva ("possessor of repentance") in the Orthodox neighborhood of Boro Park, Brooklyn. Her goal is to learn the customs and philosophies of her ancestors but also to find a good man and start a family—like the one of recent widower Yaakov Lehman, whose children she begins caring for. She doesn't know the prejudice she's up against. Yaakov is struggling as well. It would be frowned upon for him to leave his full-time Talmudic studies to make money, even if he had the skills to do so. Other skills he does not possess, by design, are housekeeping and child-rearing; both have fallen to his 15-year-old daughter, Shaindele. Will Yaakov and Leah find happiness? Of course. But first there must be hurdles. These come in the form of many terrible dates (for each of them) with outsized, terrible characters, courtesy of the local matchmakers. Shaindele, hurting and overburdened, throws some roadblocks at them, aided in part by Yaakov's mother-in-law, who acts as a window into the community and the threat it feels from outsiders. Additional chapters go into too much detail about Leah's overstuffed, overcomplicated backstory (while still leaving out entire referred-to chunks, like time spent living in Israel) but serve the purpose of delaying the inevitable until the admittedly sweet ending.
The Sound of Music meets Fiddler on the Roof, but without the singing.