The Matzah Ball
By: Jean Meltzer
Released: April 16th, 2019
Pages: 416
My Rating: 4/5
Goodreads Synopsis:
Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt is a nice Jewish girl with a shameful secret: she loves Christmas. For a decade she's hidden her career as a Christmas romance novelist from her family. Her talent has made her a bestseller even as her chronic illness has always kept the kind of love she writes about out of reach.
But when her diversity-conscious publisher insists she write a Hanukkah romance, her well of inspiration suddenly runs dry. Hanukkah's not magical. It's not merry. It's not Christmas. Desperate not to lose her contract, Rachel's determined to find her must at the Matzah Ball, a Jewish music celebration on the last night of Hanukkah, even if it means working with her summer camp archenemy-Jacob Greenberg.
Though Rachel and Jacob haven't seen each other since they were kids, their grudge still glows brighter than a menorah. But as they spend more time together, Rachel finds herself drawn to Hanukkah-and Jacob-in a way she never expected. Maybe this holiday of lights will be the spark she needed to set her heart ablaze.
My Review:
When I was looking for the books I wanted to read in December I was searching for something different than the usual Christmas romance. I'm not opposed to romance this time of year, and in fact this is the time of year where all I really read is romance. It's something about the holidays that allows me to embrace all the cheesiness. When I stumbled upon The Matzah Ball on Barnes and Nobles website, I knew I had to pick it up. This time of year is so heavily saturated with Christmas books it was definitely a pleasant change of pace to start a Hanukkah themed book.
Now I will say I enjoyed this book and though the first half I felt excited to pick it up. However, after that halfway point it started to feel petty and I did not enjoy it as much. I felt the problems Rachel and Jacob were having were so minor and honestly, just kind of dumb. They were essentially fighting over issues spanning years and years back from Summer Camp. While I do enjoy a enemy to lovers romance I did not see how they were still compatible after so many years and life changes. I also found Rachels "secret" to be very annoying throughout the story and I hated the way it was presented to be something major and much more serious than what it was. I get where the author was going with this but I felt the execution was a bit off.
On the whole I found this book to be enjoyable and a pleasant change of pace from the traditional Christmas book but found it to be a bit slow and irritating in places. The main characters came off as more privileged than I was hoping for and so often I found myself wanting to shake them to their senses. I would say if you are looking for a cute holiday read this is a good one to scoop up but just be prepared to want to yell at the characters.
Signing off,
Molly
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