The author of The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen is back with a new YA novel set in an Orthodox Jewish community. In The Judgment of Yoyo Gold, Blum explores themes of community, challenging beliefs, and discovering what you believe in -- even if differs from your parents' beliefs. Yoyo has always been the perfect Jewish daughter -- going grocery shopping, helping with her younger siblings, and never ever stepping out of line. But when she meets a non-Orthodox Jewish girl through her volunteer work, she learns about TikTok and starts to see the secrets and shadows in her Orthodox community. I love Yoyo and this coming of age story. For fans of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

I loved this story, Yoyo’s a complex character, both wanting to satisfy her fathers beliefs and being in his ester but also the desire to be part of something as a teenager.

🌟 Wow—this book was an unexpected gem! The Judgment of Yoyo Gold is one of those YA novels that sneaks up on you with its charm, heart, and depth. Set in the Orthodox Jewish community, it’s a coming-of-age story that feels fresh, honest, and deeply compelling.
Blum invites you into a world that might be unfamiliar to many readers, but he does it with such warmth and authenticity that you can’t help but be completely captivated. The cultural details and nuances of Orthodox life are woven seamlessly into the story, creating a vivid backdrop for Yoyo’s journey. Yoyo is such a relatable protagonist—her struggles, doubts, and self-discovery are universal, even as they’re rooted in the specifics of her community. The character development is excellent. Every teen in this book feels real, flawed, and vibrant. This isn’t my normal choice of a fast-paced thriller, but instead, it’s a story that asks you to slow down and reflect. It’s brimming with emotion: the challenges, the triumphs, and all the little moments in between that tug at your heartstrings
⭐ 4 Stars – An absolutely charming read that offers a rare glimpse into Orthodox Jewish life while telling a universal story of growth and self-discovery. Highly recommend for fans of heartfelt, character-driven YA!

very intersting YA fiction with some compelling characters and a strong plotline. the weakest point was that i felt i needed more definition for some of the terms because I found myself looking up some of them to understand the book at points. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

We need more books that give light into the Orthodox community. I loved Yoyo, she felt like a real teen who goes through a lot of things that real teens do - but did so in the context of Orthodox Judaism. I hope for so many more books like this.

I feel like this is one of those books whose sum is greater than its parts. It’s a girl’s exploration of her faith and what it means to her. It’s a dry, funny story about growing up and falling in love.

One of my favorite things about the book is all the moments in which Yoyo responds to a situation with some unexpected, funny aside. Sometimes it’s a quick after-the-fact joke. Those moments consistently took me by surprise and added levity to the scene.

I also like how much of the story centers around female relationships with one another and the power of those connections to protect or destroy. The girls could be cruel to one another. In a close community like Yoyo’s, rumors could be devastating. But that same close community meant that girls holding space for one another and offering support or understanding also had a huge impact.

At this point, I think we’ve all read books about faith deconstruction in which the main character grows up and discards the beliefs and values they were raised to hold. The message is usually something along the lines of exposing hypocrisy and casting off faith which held one back from living a fuller, more authentic life.

This isn’t that story. It’s frank in its assessment of the strictures of the Orthodox faith. Yoyo’s questions are genuine, and her struggle is real. But it isn’t a binary question of whether she will embrace her faith or discard it. Her path forward isn’t simple, but it does lead her toward greater authenticity and a greater understanding of what her role in her family and community and her faith mean to her.

I can tell I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time, and I’m really excited to read more by Isaac Blum. I have his debut novel, but hadn’t gotten to it yet. I’m going to have to fix that very soon!

Readers who enjoy faith exploration or stories about someone’s journey toward a more authentic life will want to read this one.

One of my favorite bookstagrammers (@beyondthebookends) recommended this book. What a GREAT recommendation — I was GLUED from page 1 to the very end. Yoyo Gold is a rabbi’s daughter who takes on a lot of responsibilities as part of their Orthodox Jewish lifestyle. She started to be curious about things outside of the rules and explores them. It was a book about self-reflection, self-journey and growth. It was particularly nice how the book included another character who was Reform Jewish — showing that there are different ways to be Jewish. I was very immersed into this story and was disappointed when it ended, wanting to know more about Yoyo’s journey. One of my favorite books I read this year. Very highly recommended! Thank you NetGalley and Philomel Books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book is a roller coaster of emotions. Yoyo is the perfect Jewish daughter for her rabbi father in her Orthodox Jewish community. But her eyes are opened overtime of transgressions and hypocrisies in her community, and it is just time before these small notices begin to change her and make her question herself and her life. I, as an outsider of this community, learned a lot about their religion and traditions while also going along for Yoyo’s journey of self discovery.

I was really excited to get approved for this book because I loved Isaac Blum’s first book and couldn’t wait to see what he had in store. The cover immediately caught my attention, because much like in The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen, the person pictured is a visibly Orthodox Jewish character. It might not seem like a big deal, but having an Orthodox Jewish character on the cover of a book published by one of the Big Five is a huge deal for a population that is so small in comparison to the rest of the world.

As expected, Blum takes readers into the heart of a closed community that most people don’t get to see. As someone who was raised in between Conservative and Orthodox Judaism, my family leaned more towards Orthodox, allowing me insight into the community as someone who has been on the edges of it for my whole life. This made it easy for me to understand and identify with a lot of the book, although I did have a few dislikes.

Starting with the positives is Yoyo herself, and the characters around her. Yoyo is smart, capable, and comes across as significantly more mature than most of her peers. It made me sad for her that so much responsibility is on her shoulders without her getting any say in it. As one of the oldest siblings, Yoyo isn’t just driven to do well in school, she’s basically pushed to be a miniature version of a rabbi’s wife, like her mother. This requires Yoyo to be a power of example and support within the community, handle tasks around the house, and care for her younger siblings. As if that isn’t enough, we meet Yoyo just after her very best friend, Esti, left the community and has no means of contacting Yoyo.

We also get to know a little bit about her five siblings, but more importantly, her other friends, and a new person in her life, the daughter of the new Reform Jewish rabbi, who has just moved to the area. It seems to be the first sustained interaction that Yoyo has had outside of her own community, which is insulated: she attends yeshiva (Jewish day school) with the girls from her community, shops at the kosher supermarket in town, and is always surrounded by other Orthodox Jews. A budding potential relationship with Mickey ushers in a conflict of ideas in some areas that Yoyo hasn’t really put much thought into. But it’s ultimately her experience with TikTok that causes the most conflict in Yoyo’s life.

Being a rabbi’s daughter comes with a lot of expectations, and Yoyo has shown herself more than capable of doing what her society expects of her and exceptionally self-aware for a teenager. However, now that Yoyo sees some things occurring in her community and has no outlet, she finds herself questioning some things she never even thought about questioning. This comes on the heels of Esti’s leaving the community over some things that didn’t seem overly problematic to Yoyo, and in fact are common practices of people who aren’t very religious.

There are funny moments, and universal moments of frustration with siblings that every teenager can identify with. There is a major twist at the end, and it changed my perception about one thing that I was a bit critical of. When portraying such a small, insulated community of people, there’s a fine line between discussion and potentially misrepresenting a larger group of people. Yes, Orthodox Jews especially tend to stay in small, clannish communities, but millennia of persecution and being kept in ghettos has had strong effects on Jewish communities, especially Orthodox communities, where residents are visibly Jewish.

One of my biggest issues with the book is that it makes the community only want people to blindly obey. Judaism is very heavy on questioning and explaining a rational reason why we are directed to obey the 613 commandments laid out in the Torah. Throughout our readings is discussion by the sages of what was meant by each paragraph, sentence, even why one word was used instead of another. And maybe it was because Yoyo was a rabbi’s daughter, with additional pressure on her to conform, but it didn’t sit right with me when normal and healthy teenage behavior is pathologized and ostracized. Women in Judaism are very important both in our past and our present, and Orthodox women aren’t just the heart of the home, they are supportive of the others in their community and are viewed as being closer to HaShem than men.

“They said that women were naturally closer to God. That’s why we weren’t required to pray as often as men, or as thoroughly, or as intensely: because women were Godly in and of themselves.”

I could empathize with what Yoyo was going through, and when you’ve always done what is expected and seen others doing that all your life, it is immensely difficult to see hypocrisy and problems within a community. It was a turning point for Yoyo when she comes to this realization, which embodies the strong tradition of social justice in Judaism:

“‘We need to worry about whatever it was that made her sneak out at night on Shabbos to sit in the dark in a parked car and vape alone. And we need to worry that it’s us, that we’re the ones who made her do that.’”

For the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I could see characters doing the wrong thing and seeing the slippery slope that they were on, but I could also see the humanity in all of the flawed characters in this book. It made them feel more realistic, and gives voice to the young people who are seeking connection with others who understand them. And while I had my issues with the story, I think it is still an important read because it gives voice to young Orthodox Jews who are ready to modernize some aspects of an ancient religion, and sometimes even those who have to learn things the hard way:

“‘It’s like every little thing was fine. Every step I took felt like the right step at the time. But then I didn’t end up where I wanted to. And I should have known. I did know. I was told over and over, but it took all these steps to figure it out myself.”

Truly one of the best novels I’ve read this year. It is a perfect coming-of-age story that beautifully straddles the line between the struggle for independence, self-discovery, without completely disregarding one’s roots. Yoyo embarks on this journey, makes mistakes, and learns from them. She learns that she can become her own person and still honors the traditions and relationships she values so deeply. It’s also wonderful to read a book that tackles Orthodox Judaism with depth and love, not just disdain and distance. It is just a perfect, multi-layered, novel about self-determination.

I absolutely love this book. I thought Yoyo Gold was a phenomenal protagonist - as someone not especially familiar with Judaism, let alone Orthodox Judaism, I really appreciated the lens this book provided and the way it showed multiple ways of being Jewish. I loved it

YA 4 star. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I really enjoyed this novel about an Orthodox Jewish teenager questioning her role in her family and community. I was disappointed when it ended- would have liked to read even more about her self-exploration.

This book is a thought-provoking coming-of-age story. Yoyo Gold is a likable relatable heroine. Anyone can relate to the feeling of coming to an age when you start to question some of the things you've always been taught. Yoyo doesn't hold others to a higher standard than herself which is admirable. She is equally willing to secretly report on her own transgressions.

It is also admirable how she is always her own person and never really worries that much about fitting in. None of her friends are that likable anyway they are all kind of selfish even her alleged best friend, Esti, who doesn't tell Yoyo the real reason she leaves town among other things. The only one who really seems to care about her is Shua, the boy she likes and they are not even really supposed to have a relationship because of their religion. It is too bad because they are really sweet together.

It is nice that the characters of Mickey and her mother demonstrate that there is not only one way to be Jewish. However, Mickey's character is too extreme. She makes it seem like if you are not in a strictly religious family then you are just running wild, and rebelling all the time which is definitely not always true. Mickey is also mostly selfish like Yoyo's other friends, but when Yoyo really needs her she is there.

Yoyo's family takes her for granted and kind of treats her like a servant. As the oldest girl, she is expected to take on quite a lot of responsibility that isn't expected of the others. However, in the end, they realize this and show they care about her. It is also nice that they don't go too overboard in response to what Yoyo has done like you'd think they would because of their strictly religious views and also because Yoyo's father is actually the rabbi. They are at least there for her which is more than can be said for her so-called friends. This girl definitely needs to get some new friends.

The Judgment of Yoyo Gold is a coming-of-age story at its finest and that’s a testament to Isaac Blum’s storytelling. I was completely immersed in Yoyo Gold’s world.

Yoyo struggles with the lot typical of any teenager: school obligations, familial and responsibilities, friendships and her first crush. But there are heightened expectations of her as the daughter of the local Orthodox rabbi. And after her best friend is sent off to boarding school, Yoyo (the ultimate rule follower) begins to question it all. I think Blum expertly portrayed and developed Yoyo’s emotional journey: her indignation at discovered hypocrisies, feelings of loneliness and being misunderstood, and her struggle to adequately channel feelings so strong they could burst from her body. These feelings were tangible. It made her growth and reclaimed agency extremely satisfying. Also, you wouldn’t expect a book set in an Orthodox community to showcase varying observance levels of Judaism, but this book does it beautifully.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Judgment of Yoyo Gold is out TODAY! I highly recommend it.

Thank you Penguin Teen and NetGalley for the ARC.

A surprisingly engaging coming-of-age story about Yoyo Gold — a young Orthodox Jewish girl who has always been a model for the community. She kind of has to be as she is the daughter of the rabbi and held to higher standards than most. As she explores and experiments with her place in the world the one she has been raised to inhabit and other enticing options she gets closer to understanding what is important to her.

A great, thoughtful read, with a character who captures you from the first page and will hold you till she reaches a reckoning with faith, love, friendship, and the world outside her own.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

My thanks to NetGalley and Philomel/Penguin Random House for the ARC of "The Judgement of Yoyo Gold" in exchange for an honest review.
Yoyo is most definitely not your typical teen overachiever who longs to break through the constraints put upon her by her family, friends and community. She's the dutiful oldest child of an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and tirelessly does everything expected of her......excels in classes, helps to co-parent her younger siblings, follows the teachings and procedures of her faith and functions as a perfect role model for everyone around her.
Her only outlet for communicating her true feelings was her lifelong friendship with Esti, whose extroverted, daring behavior proved too much to their tight=knit community........when Esti s sent off to a far away school, an angry, frustrated Yoyo believes her dearest friend was indeed banished, with her father having a hand in it.
Yoyo's more than ready to unleash rebellion against the structure of her Orthodox life, and her increasingly uncomfortable role in it. in. She finds a kindred spirit (and sweet first love) in gentle, studious Shua, yet another outcast who helps removes her father's filters from her phone.. This allows Yoyo to secretly outrage and confound her peers. with anonymous gossip-y Tik Tok videos.......revealing moments of un-Orthodox,,rule breaking behavior from her friends and herself. as well.
All of Yoyo's inner turbulence is presented with a knowing sense of wisdom and at times, the sharpest, ironic wit you'll ever enjoy in a YA drama. And author Isaac Blum deftly immerses you in a world of religious faith that may seem strange and foreign until you see all the universal things unfold.....the changing dynamics between parents and children and the eternal adolescent challenge to figure out who you are and what's your place in the world.
A great, thoughtful read, with a character who captures you from the first page and will hold you till she reaches a reckoning with faith, love, friendship and the world outside her own. My highest recommendation.

I really liked this book! I found Yoyo to be incredibly complex and relatable. I knew very little about Judaism and I very much liked learning about the religion, especially the different sects of it. I felt like beyond Yoyo feeling conflicted in certain beliefs and practices in being Orthodox, the book did a great job of showing eldest sister syndrome and the pressures of being a child of a religious leader. Even though this book focuses on being in an Orthodox Jewish community, I thought it was relatable for anyone who has ever questioned or deconstructed their religious beliefs. I also loved seeing Yoyo’s relationships with Esti, Shua and Mickey. I’m so glad I got the chance to read this one!
CW: animal death, antisemitism, bullying,

Thank you to NetGalley and Philomel Books for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting YA novel about an Orthodox Jewish girl who gains entry into the secular world after befriending the daughter of a Reform rabbi. After her friend Esti is ostracized from their tight-knit community, Yoyo begins to question the rules and traditions she’s grown up with. She channels her anger into Tiktok videos, exposing her supposedly devout classmates for their own transgressions.

Sharp and witty, Yoyo is a likable character. She’s the eldest daughter of an esteemed rabbi, and a role model to her friends and younger siblings, but she is still a typical teenager in many ways. Yoyo begins to crush on Shua Holtzman, a friend's older brother who was recently expelled from his yeshiva in Israel. Shua's religion and community are important to him, but he doesn't agree with some of the rules and restrictions of Orthodoxy. He regularly consults the Torah in order to help Yoyo navigate her feelings of confusing and frustration.

Another high point of the novel was Yoyo's friendship with Mickey. I like that the book explored the different sects of Judaism, and that Mickey and Yoyo both had things to learn from each other.

I was provided an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley.

Yoyo is an Orthodox Jewish teen and the daughter of the community's revered rabbi. As the eldest daughter, she's taken on a lot of household responsibilities and is looked to by her friends as a wise problem-solver. But as the book opens, Yoyo is dealing with the fact that her best friend, Esti, has left the community for a boarding school after it becomes known that she kissed a boy. Yoyo's anger at the loss of her friend and the unfairness of the situation pushes her to begin to chronicle the hypocrisy of her community in a series of videos she posts. At the same time, she's become attracted to Shua, a boy in her community who was expelled from a Yeshiva in Israel for removing the "Kosher filters" from his classmates' cell phones.

The book centers on questions of faith and responsibility and being true to ones self. How does Yoyo deal with hypocrisy? How far is she willing to go to deviate from Orthodox observance? How does she deal with her feelings for Shua? Is there a way for her to remain observant but on her own terms?

The author deals so well with these complexities while also making Yoyo very real and believable. He and Yoyo remain respectful of the religious traditions while also keeping Yoyo true to herself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Yoyo's story! This is a wonderful coming of age story that will resonate with teen readers from all walks of life, not just Jewish readers. All teens can relate to questioning their beliefs and the expectations placed on them by their family. I am not Jewish, so I cannot speak to accuracy of the representation of the Orthodox community in the story, but I very much enjoyed the peak into that lifestyle and what that might look like for teens living in today's modern world. I think this book would lead to a lot of great discussion in a classroom, and would be perfect for literature circles or book clubs.