Never Mind the Goldbergs

Matthue Roth

ISBN 10: 0439691885 / ISBN 13: 9780439691888

Published by Scholastic US, 2005

About this Item

The greatest Hollywood punk rock Orthodox Jewgirl story EVER TOLD!Don't think for a second that you know Hava or her place in the world. Yes, she's an Orthodox Jew. But that doesn't mean she can't rock out. And yes, she has opinions about everything around her. But her opinions about herself can be twice as harsh. Now Hava's just been asked to be the token Jew on a TV show about a Jewish family, trading one insular community for another. As in Tanuja Desai Hidier's BORN CONFUSED, there is soon a collision of both cultures and desires -- with one headstrong heroine caught in the middle.

Seller Inventory # CIN0439691885G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Never Mind the Goldbergs
• Publisher: Scholastic US
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0439691885
• ISBN 13: 9780439691888
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

The greatest Hollywood punk rock Orthodox Jewgirl story EVER TOLD!

Don't think for a second that you know Hava or her place in the world. Yes, she's an Orthodox Jew. But that doesn't mean she can't rock out. And yes, she has opinions about everything around her. But her opinions about herself can be twice as harsh.
Now Hava's just been asked to be the token Jew on a TV show about a Jewish family, trading one insular community for another. As in Tanuja Desai Hidier's BORN CONFUSED, there is soon a collision of both cultures and desires -- with one headstrong heroine caught in the middle.

Reviews

Grade 9 Up–Seventeen-year-old New Yorker Hava Aaronson, a self-consciously observant Jew, is nonetheless unorthodox in many ways. She has spiked hair, loves punk culture, and punctuates her colorful, rebellious language with four-letter words (though she is reverently careful to refer to the Supreme Being as "G-d"). Her best friends are her confidant Ian, who is gay and not Jewish, and her platonic soul mate Moishe, who makes offbeat films and practices a kind of countercultural Orthodox Judaism. After a successful stint in a play, Hava is offered a lead role in a Hollywood sitcom about a caricatured American modern Orthodox Jewish family. She is immediately thrust into a world of make-believe and pretense, and spends the summer trying to sort out what is real and what isn't and what her religion means to her. Frequent visits from Ian and Moishe help to ground her, but most of her time is spent in a mixture of boredom, confusion, alienation, and often pointless (though sometimes humorous) rebellion. Hava tells her story in a vivid, funny, and distinguishable voice, but the narrative action is not sustained and her character development is not as clear as her barely controlled emotions and conflicted interior dialogues. Roth provides readers with an irreverent, insider look into two cultures and a portrait of a character trying to define herself in these very different environments.–Jack Forman, Mesa College Library, San Diego
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