I am a member of the American Library Association Sophie Brody Medal Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2025 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners, honorable mentions and noteworthy titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2025/01/jozsef-debreczeni-named-winner-of-2025-sophie-brody-medal/">

Subversive, clever and just extremely interesting. I wasn't expecting this to stun but it totally did.

2.5 stars
All of the moving pieces of this book were fine on their own but somehow just didn’t quite click in/connect for me. I didn’t feel the magical realism from Jewish folklore fit the vibe with Shiva and Hannah’s POVs. I did like Shiva’s story and the sapphic rep. I felt the author was a good writer and I will continue to read their books!
Thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the audiobook copy

This is an amazing book! It's queer, literary, and steeped in Jewish heritage and folklore. The writing is beautiful and has an almost dreamy quality to it. I can see this story sticking with me for a long time, and I will definitely be looking out for a physical copy of this book to pick up!

4.5/5

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

City of Laughter

Synopsis: Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger—bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century. In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family’s mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother Mira, about whom no one speaks. What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present.

Review: What an incredible literary novel, and debut from Temim Fruchter. There’s a lot to follow in this book with four generations of women sharing their stories, interwoven between each other, with additional folklore stories as well (I loved these!) but the writing delivered these detailed stories with ease. I’ve always struggled to connect to characters and novels with character based structures, but I really loved following Shiva’s story as I felt we had a lot in common. I also loved the education this book delivers about Jewish, Polish and Queer culture.

My sincerest thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in audio form in exchange for my review.

3/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

“The City of Laughter” is a beautifully written novel and I does a great job at exploring of Jewish folklore, though I found it difficult to fully immerse myself in the story.
The audio book was well-narrated, yet I struggled to feel engaged at times because the narrative keeps jumping between points of view. This definitely works for me in some cases, but I don’t think it particularly suited this story because it is quite slow-paced (which I like!) and made it feel slightly disjointed at times. I did like Shiva, the protagonist as a character, was interested in her journey and really enjoyed some of her reflections on her family history and the role folklore has played in it.

I wanted to love this, and parts of it were great. It is a queer Jewish multigenerational time traveling saga. It’s amazing. But I listened to the audiobook, and I had a very difficult time keeping all of the threads of the story together.
I’d recommend reading this as a regular book or setting aside a very long car trip to listen to the whole audiobook. It’s quite long.
I really loved the parts about Shiva’s life in Brooklyn and the intimidating group of femmes. I could imagine that so easily. I had more trouble with the time shifting parts and especially that first story. I think it’s probably a great book, and I’m just not the right reader for it, especially not via audiobook.

What a mind-blowing read this was. I can't and won't stop myself from praising the prose, so beautiful and elegant like a river flowing down smoothly.

This book is for those who admire writing more than anything, the story can be confusing because of abrupt jumps in the narrative and can get on your nerves. It's written in non lineear fashion and it takes time to figure out who's who.

There are many mystical figures dispersed throughout the story. Messangers or I'm not sure but if I'm right I have the story figure out but it won't be easy to explain in words and give away too much of the story and spoilers.

It's a story of a girl -Shiva which actually means mourning ( In India, Shiva is high almighty - God worshipped in every corner and nook so it didn't really bothered me until I understood it isn't mean to be a happy name) , a queer woman who's father has passed away and her mother Hannah, they share a difficult relationship which they are trying to patch up. Hannah is how it is coz of her own mother, Syl and who in turn was how she was because of her mother's Mira's tragic story.

This is four generational family saga, no not family saga really but a story of women if every generation from the same family and the passing of the generational trauma. Although I hated Hannah and Shiva's relationship in the start , later as they tried to make amends to each other I really felt that it has blossomed in beautiful way.

This book tests your patience but trust me, it is rewarding too.

Audiobook : 5 stars
Book : 5 stars

Going to hunt down books by both author Temim Fruchter and the narrator Mara Wilson coz what an delightful performance. Also dreamscape media, you bring so wonderful books. There's hardly been a time or two that disappointed with your books till now. Marvelous job in bringing such new writers.

Thank you Netgalley and many many thanks to dreamscape media and author and narrator for bringing me this amazing book that will stay with me for longer than I can imagine in exchange of an honest review.

I'm so glad I picked up Temim Fruchter's City of Laughter. What a unique and complex novel! These characters are so rich and beautifully developed. This was quite a journey.

I'm doubly glad I picked this one up, because I was pleasantly surprised to discover City of Laughter is narrated by Mara Wilson! (You might remember her as the precocious main character in the movie Matilda.) Anyway, she dose a marvelous job with this book - infusing so much emotion into these lovely characters.

I highly recommend City of Laughter.

Thank you #NetGalley #DreamscapeMedia #MaraWilson PeteCross and #TemimFruchter for the ARC of the audiobook.

A telling of lesbian discover through Jewish Folklore. I’m not completely sure how to rate this book. The descriptive imagery of this book was amazing. I could feel the places and see the people through the words. The story, intertwined too much for me to follow at times.

This book went in a very different direction than I expected, but certainly not in a bad way.

Based on the prologue and blurb I expected a historical novel of 18th century shtetl-life in Poland, but instead you get a contemporary story in which Shiva (queer, single, young, Jewish, New Yorker) goes on a quest to find answers to questions about the mysterious family history her taciturn mother refuses to talk about. Shiva is certain that the lives of her eccentric grandmother and her elusive great-grandmother contain clues that can help her with her own problems. Shiva enters a Master's programme to research S. Ansky, an early 20th century researcher of Jewish folklore, and gets a scholarship to visit Warsaw for research. She uses the trip hoping to visit the shtetl of her ancestors.

I suspect the author's main objective was to point out queer representation in historical Jewish folklore, and she does it well.

But actually I found the novel at its best and most credible when describing Shiva's 21st century life.

This book works well in audio form.

there is potential to be sure in City of Laughter but the dialogues did not ring true, and there was something aggravating about the mc that made me loose interest fast.

I love this story infused with Jewish Folklore. Shiva’s quest to reimagine stories is beautifully written—considering the history of erasure of Jewish, queer, trans individuals and people of color. I also loved her character development from wanting to be seen and feel “worthy” of stories, and how her unknown family history plays into the dynamics.

The “messenger” arc lost me a little and I wish it was developed more. But overall a strong debut and I’d love to read whatever the author writes next!

I was captivated by this book. Stories spanning generations of women, secrets, queer identity, and the subtle threads that endure even when neglected – Temim Fruchter's writing, both beautiful and mysterious, set a captivating atmosphere. The plot, centered around a queer woman exploring Jewish folklore to uncover her family's history, kept me engrossed. The fantastical elements added an extra layer of intrigue. Highly recommend giving it a read!

CITY OF LAUGHTER by Temim Fruchter is a novel that spans centuries and continents to embroider Jewish folklore and mysticism into a tale of one family’s descendants, originating from a lovable wedding jester.

Ancestors, faith tradition, family secrets, queer discovery, shame, and liberation all fill this tale with intricate themes and big heart. At the center of the story is Shiva Margolin, a young adult grieving both her father’s death and her first big queer heartbreak, trying to find her way in a masters’ program in NYC and reconnect with her family history by traveling to Poland on a research grant. Along the way, readers get glimpses into Shiva’s mother’s, grandmother’s, and great-grandmother’s inscrutable lives. This line of women is connected by more than Shiva realizes, including visitations by a messenger cloaked with mystery.

I really loved the old and invented Jewish folklore that’s interspersed throughout the text as well as the blurring of the supernatural with reality. Fruchter’s prose glimmers with enchanting-but-not-overwrought descriptions, making the book a pleasure to read. This is a joyful, feminist celebration of Jewish queerness and I appreciate what Fruchter accomplishes in such a playful, hopeful way.

If I were to nitpick, I think the book could have reached its full potential if it spent more time in the historical storylines, which were far more interesting to me than the modern one. I also wanted more exploration of certain themes, particularly the importance of humor in Jewish tradition, but that’s just personal preference. Readers who need everything explained or a linear storyline anchored in empiric reality may not appreciate this novel, but I was here for the ride.

Thank you @netgalley @groveatlantic for the ALC. The voice actor, Mara Wilson, is phenomenal, giving a fable-telling quality to her narration that fits the story so well. 4.25 stars.

Temim Fruchter’s carefully researched book introduced me to S. Ansky, The Dybbuk, and Jewish folklore. The novel uses academic jargon and draws upon scholarly papers exploring the Queer references in Jewish folklore. Since I hadn’t ever heard of any of the references, I spent some time looking up S. Ansky and The Dybbuk so I could understand this novel better. It sparked an intellectual curiosity in me and I am grateful for that.

Mara Wilson narrates the audiobook and she is superb. She’s one of my favorite narrators.

Much of this novel was dreamlike in that the words flowed and drifted and sounded beautiful, and then when I tried to mentally summarize what the key plot points were, I couldn’t.

To me this novel is more like poetry than a narrative. I still don’t know what really happened with all these supernatural messengers who were many yet one, and who possessed four generations of women in one family. I don’t even know if that is what happened. I couldn’t tell who was a human and who was supernatural. I still enjoyed the book and am rating it 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for the free advanced reader copy digital audiobook for review. All opinions are my own.

A story that spans generations and dissects Jewish tradition, spirituality, and culture. The timeline went back and forth between present day with Shiva, a modern orthodox woman who is newly out as queer, and her ancestors, Hannah, Syl and Mira. The entire story was immersed and then sprinkled with Jewish folklore, Jewish traditions, and feminism. Each generation questioning what works for them. This was well written, and I found myself getting lost in the story. I appreciated the Jewish Rep. Shiva heads to Poland to find answers about her family. Some stories of the women were harder to connect with than others. Parts of the beginning were slow, but the ending picked up and brought everything together. It was nice reading a book that was Jewish and wasn’t focused on WWII or as a romcom.

Audiobook Review: City of Laughter
by Temim Fruchter

Narrator: by Mara Wilson
Length: 13h 31m

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

City of Laughter traverses four generations of women, dating back to 18th century Poland, and their interwoven stories. If our stories make us who we are, what happens when we forget, blot out or keep secret the stories of our lives?

In the present day, Shiva Margolin is a student of Jewish Folklore. At the start of the novel, she is both grieving the death of her beloved father and recovering from her first queer love. Shiva and her mother Hannah have never been close. When Shiva’s father dies, it shatters the fragile bonds that held her family together. Shiva has always felt like her mother withheld information about herself and her family. Shiva yearns to know her family’s story. It feels like it is the only thing that will help her feel unstuck, fill the void and make her whole again. If her mother won’t answer her questions, then she’ll seek them elsewhere.

I had images of Chagall’s stained glass windows drifting through my mind as I read City of Laughter. Broken shards of brilliant light and moody blues, and the manner in which disparate pieces come together to reveal a scene. You’re never quite sure what Fruchter will reveal next, but you want to be there for all of it! A multigenerational drama featuring queer women finding their truest selves, Jewish folklore, holy jesters, mysterious strangers and mystical weather systems, what more can you want! Have I made you curious?

I highly recommend listening to the audiobook as Mara Wilson’s skillfully voiced characters and excellent pacing brought the book to life.

Mixed on this one. The introductory story was an absolute stunner, but after 1/3 to 1/2 of the book following, I just didn’t remain engaged. Did not finish this one.

I began this one on audio then switched to print because I thought it might be the narration putting me off, but still didn’t really regain the initial spark for me.

What a gorgeous book! Is it too early to be calling one of my favorites of the year? This intergenerational queer Jewish saga gorgeously interweaves fragments across four women in Shiva's family's lives. The prose itself is gorgeous yet not over-wrought, each character feels rich with inner life and dynamism, and the narrative fluctuates back and forth in time but in a languid way that feels natural. This incredible debut (debut?! WOW. Author to watch!) rings with authenticity. Beautiful, messy, and real. I didn't want it to end! Gorgeously narrated as well. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a long time...


Disclaimer: I received an audiobook ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.