This is a very odd book. I think when i got it I though it was something else. It follows a young woman who's got three kids and her life falls apart. So she goes back to her family's faith, the laws of the old world Jews. You know, those laws that Christ came to set us free from? I do love the Jewish people, so this is an emotional story because of this woman trying so hard to find freedom, stability, herself and I just wish she could have found more from an encounter with the living Christ. Couldn't help that. Overall, it's sort of an older type romance story.

Thanks to NetGalley for my digital copy of this book. A positive review is never required.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for the free book.
As I'm writing this backlist review, I'm wondering why I waited so long, yet it was a story that I needed just right at this moment. This is a character driven story about Leah and her transition to the Orthodox Jewish faith in Brooklyn. This book explores religion and faith, and other's negative views of these ideas. It explores Judaism as a religion and culture. It's a beautiful story, but it was also filled with heartbreak and tenacity. I enjoyed the deep look into each of these characters and their POVs. Leah, Jacob, his MIL, and oldest daughter all have their voices heard when it comes to being Jewish and what that means/looks like to them. I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

"An Unorthodox Match" was just not my cup of tea. I wanted to like it more but a lot of things just stuck out to me in a bad way and it definitely isn't for me. I didn't really care much for the characters either so it felt like a bit of a slog to read.

Review coming soon. Fell behind due to illness, amd working on all of the old ones now.

This one will not be forgotten. This was a seriously interesting read!
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC; opinions are mine.


Pub Date was September 24, 2019
#NaomiRagen #TheUnorthodoxMatch #NetGalley

An Unorthodox Match, by Naomi Ragen, is the story of a secular Jewish woman's journey into the ultra-Orthodox community and then falling in love with a widower and his five children. Ragen does an excellent job of personalizes the positive values of a religious life as seen through the eyes of the protagonist. She is equally unflinching at depicting the negatives of an insular, hierarchical community. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read a digital ARC.

Meh. First, the book I read had a different cover, more modern, the latest trend in covers. So it's misleading. The cover shown here is also misleading, so I'm just saying it was a weird quirk.

Listen, I grew up in the sort of environment, attended the same sort of school that the daughter in this book attended. While a lot of the things mentioned in this book are true, so many are not. At least in my experience.

And the biggest one of those is the prejudice that was shown in this book to people not of this culture. I found some sentences actually shocking, and I was so frustrated that I should have stopped reading. I finished it, will not be reading the sequel.

While I understand this is written from a point of view of the author, who has lived in this culture for 50+ years, I just didn't love the way it was portrayed. Maybe that's just a reflection of me?

It's interesting timing that my book club selected An Unorthodox Match for our July meeting. I had just finished watching Shtisel and was going through withdrawal. I started this novel around the time I had finished the series and it helped me hold on to the feeling of the show for a while longer. Talk about besherte!

I really enjoyed this novel overall. It was an interesting story about the forces trying to keep apart two neshamas (souls) that were meant to be together. I liked how Naomi Ragen weaved in Shabbat throughout the story, showing what a meaningful experience it is, especially to someone new to Orthodox Judaism. Both Leah (Lola) and Yaakov (Jacob) were likable and relatable in different ways. I was rooting for them to find a way to be together, despite all the odds working against them.

I feel like there were some satirical elements to this novel, especially surrounding the dates that Leah and Yaakov went on through shidduch matches. Some aspects of the story seemed like an exaggeration, like with how they were making a huge deal over what people would think and how it would affect shidduch prospects for Yaakov's kids. Although I do think it speaks volumes about the shidduch crisis, which is a real thing in Orthodox communities. If you're going to take away something from this novel, it would be both to not judge others so harshly and also to not worry so much about what people think of you.

The only issue I had with the writing style was that she switched perspectives a lot within sections, instead of breaking them apart so we'd know who to focus on. For example, when Leah and Yaakov were in the same room, we'd see Yaakov's perspective and then without warning, it would change to Leah's perspective, and then suddenly go back to Yaakov's.

If you're reading this novel and don't understand some of the terminology being used, there's a glossary at the back. Some words were even new to me.

There's a sequel to this novel coming in the fall and I am excited to read it soon! I'm not casting this one, as it's too hard for me to find the right fit for these characters.

This is not a type of book that I normally read, but one that I am glad I did. A story about a girl, Lola, who has everything and then loses her fiancé in a freak accident, and her career in another odd way and she seeks refuge in an insular, ultra orthodox jewish community (that is very judgmental btw). Her mother absolutely disagrees with this decision, telling her she has basically joined a mysogynistic religious cult. However, Lola doesn't listen to her and where I really enjoyed this book was when she went on dates to find her match, and some were very entertaining. Yaakov is a widow with 5 children, and as he finally ventures out to work with the Matchmaker he has some not so entertaining stories but I was glad we got his perspective as it was so additive to this book. I loved each of Lola's experiences and Yaakov's as well, they were both two hurting people learning to work through everything and live again. Like I said this is not a book that I would normally read, but I thought it was very well done, and I learned a lot about Judaism and the different sects within it.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital copy to review.

In this book, Naomi Ragen delves into the cult-like, virtually hidden, world of the ultra-Orthodox Jews, who, in the United States, live in a confined area of Brooklyn; almost in a self-imposed ghetto. In brief, it’s the story of Leah (Lola) Howard, a 30 year old Ba’al Teshuva (essentially one who has returned to Judaism after a long absence, being born Jewish but not raised in a Jewish gone, etc.,), loses her fiancé in a terrible accident, and wants to find a life that allows her to truly connect with God. She enters this community and is apparently welcomed with open arms, soon, despite her demanding career (unheard of for women among the Ultra-Orthodox), engages in an act of loving kindness by babysitting for a recently widowed man who has five children, two sent away to yeshiva in Baltimore, one young teen who had taken over after her mother died, a four year old, and a baby. The young children are enchanting, the older boys invisible, and the older daughter insufferable.

Leah soon enters the world of arranged dates and arranged marriages that are the Ultra-Orthodox “courtships.” She has a matchmaker who sends her men who are, frankly, disgusting. Meanwhile, Leah somehow falls in love with the man she’s helping out, without ever meeting him. As fate would have it, they do meet, have a few dates, and agree to be married.

It was at that point that I stopped reading as the true nature of this community - insular, hypocritical, shallow, and gossiping, emerges.

I’ve read several fictional and non-fiction works that are outstanding in exposing the challenges of both living in this community and the community of Satmar Chasidim, as well as the torment any female member of these communities endure if they seek to divorce the husband who abuses them, expelled, never to see their children again. Whenever I read something about the Haredi Orthodox, who, contrary to the Torah by which they claim to live their lives, do not welcome strangers into their midst, I become extremely angry that there is this kind of community within my religion. There have been many factual reports of child sex abuse and abusive husbands in this culture. Women are treated as brood mares. They live in voluntary poverty while the husbands spend hours every day in their yeshivot studying and debating fine points of Torah, Talmud, the Shulchan Aruch, and other texts; a pursuit which leaves the men unemployable (there is not much demand for Torah scholars these days) and the women, because they are busy raising children and keeping a good Jewish home, unemployable as well.

This book exposes the dark underbelly of Judaism, and it’s scandalous that this way of life continues.

I received this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There was so much to love about this story - the characters were interesting and layered, the descriptions of orthodox judaism were beautiful and thoughtful, and it was very well-written. I'm still thinking about this book days later.

Naomi Ragen usually writes about the Orthodox Jewish experience and this book is no exception. The main character is a Jewish woman who comes to orthodoxy as a young adult and moves to a very orthodox community. It is a wonderful love story and I highly recommend it. It was a very satisfying read.

This was such a lovely story. Even though I had a strong feeling about how it would end, I had trouble putting it down. The storyline was so refreshing. I loved reading about characters whose primary goals centered around living their values.

This author was new to me and I look forward to reading more of her books.

I really liked An Unorthodox Match. The writing was not spectacular and the story was a bit obvious, but I thought Ragen did a really good job of dealing with a complicated and fraught topic

DNF- I did not like this story line or the characters. I tried several times to start the story and see if it would catch my interest but for some reason I just couldn't.

This was a typical Naomi Ragen book just enough twists for interest with really excellent character This book was graciously provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Did not finish. Started strong and then the story lost my attention.
Usually I love Ragen's books, not this one.

I really enjoyed Naomi Regan’s last book, The Devil in Jerusalem, and was absolutely jazzed to receive an early review copy of her new book from net galley. There’s something kind of comforting about slipping into the world Regan writes about. She has a way of writing beautifully about Jewish community and family and religious observance while also depicting the complications of the Orthodox world as well. The world in Ragen’s stories

It’s no secret that I love Jewish literature deeply and there are few Jewish writers as well known as Naomi Regan. I know she can also be a contested author for various reasons and I haven’t always loved her books but I enjoyed her last one, The Devil in Jerusalem, and was excited to receive an early review copy of An Unorthodox Match through Net Galley.

I’m quite happy to say I enjoyed this one a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever read a fictional novel about a Baalei Teshuva (someone who is born Jewish but raised unobservant or not Orthodox and who becomes religiously observant) so I appreciated the prospective. I grew up straddling a line between Orthodox and not myself and have had many BT friends and I think there’s so much to this story that rings very true there. I also think that Ragen wrote quite beautifully yet realistically about the things that can draw a person to religious life and the types of things one faces when joining a new community. I suppose also, being close in age to Leah, I could relate to her desires to get her life in order and my own heart ached at a scene where she is bonding with Yaakov’s children. There is so much here about family connections in the Orthodox world that I think is written very beautifully. I think Regan did quite well at getting into the mindset of what would make someone want to become observant.

At its core this novel is a love story which isn’t usually my thing but this worked for me perhaps because it’s a love story between two people but also a woman and religious Judaism. I couldn’t help but like Yaakov and I fell in love with his children as Leah did. I think the ending is a bit unrealistic yet sometimes you just want that sort of thing.

My only caveats- and this may come as a surprise to those who have found fault or even pain in Regan’s past depictions of frum Judaism- but I didn’t find that here (though some might find her depiction of the sidduchim experience a bit extreme. But it spoke to the experiences I’ve seen and certainly those of 30-something BT women in many communities). I did, however, find her depiction of Leah’s life before she became religious to devolve into a complete stereotype. The book begins with a vague reference to an early trauma I never felt was fully explored and I’m a bit confused how we went from this traumas effect on her to claims late in the book that she had had endless one night stands. And I did a spit take at Leah telling mentioning to her mother that she had not had “an inhalation of marijuana on X years”. No one talks that. But perhaps it’s the author’s age showing as there were two references to “discotheques” as well, which again, is not something you will ever hear a young American woman say. And I don’t think I need to say that not all and in my experience even many, BT women loved empty lives of casual sex, drugs, and wild partying before becoming religious. So it’s unfortunate the book delve into such stereotypes here especially when one of the struggles depicted is how some members of the community fear and imagine the worst about her past. Shame too that the cover image is what it is, huge tattoo, suggesting such a scandalous relationship as in my mind that’s not really what happens here.

Other than that and maybe a few too many changes of perspective between characters- too many and unnecessarily so early in the book and while these are done as individual chapters so still easy enough to follow, later when the book narrows in mostly to Leah and Yaakovs perspectives there are several times the perspective changes mid chapter which I found jarring- I enjoyed this one and the brief escape to this Litvish community.

Pro tip- there is a glossary of Lotvish terms in the back I wish I had realized was there sooner because I hit several I was unfamiliar with and kept resorting to Google.

Loved it! And this is coming from someone who hardly ever reads romance novels. The set-up at the beginning of the book dragged on a little but by 30%, I was hooked. All those bad dates, wow! And when they finally got together..... awwwww :)

An Unorthodox Match looks at a woman in her mid-30s who is looking for something more out of life. In her search to learn more about her Jewish roots, Leah’s path takes her to the Orthodox Jewish community in Boro Park, Brooklyn. There she meets those who are welcoming to her as a newly observant Jew but she also meets others who are unable to accept her past background in the secular world. Often a bit heavy-handed, the writing style goes back and forth in both time and among the different characters, presenting differing POVs. At the simplest level, this is a romance with the trope of a widower falling for his children’s care-giver. In addition to the romantic theme, An Unorthodox Match explores the parent/child relationship from different perspectives: Leah and her mother; Yaakov and his children; Fruma Esther and her daughter and son-in-law.

According to the author, her next novel will continue Leah and Yaakov’s story in An Unorthodox Marriage. It will explore how they deal with their differences, how they are received by the community, and what happens to Yaakov’s daughter, Shaindele. I would be interested to read more about their lives after marriage.

This is a great book. I love the way she writes.Her characters have substance. Their stories tell important things about the situations in which they are involved. It surprises me that,even now,prejudice is so rampant. Even among the same religious groups there can be such a division. I didn’t realize that the native Orthodox Jews look down on those who convert until I read this book. The strength of the main characters gives me hope that such things can be overcome. A must-read!