A review by frmeden
Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

3.0

I think, in a way, this book is far more about Judaism and the experience of queerness in a Jewish community than it is an against-the-odds lesbian romance. The latter of which I think I, and a lot of people, went into it thinking it was. That's not what it's marketed as, but I think the new movie coming out has more than implied that. It took a while to sort of re-wire my brain to enjoy the story for what it was, but I did. I didn't particularly like a lot of the characters, which the exception of maybe Dovid. Ronit is an extremely unlikable character, but I don't need my characters to be nice people to like them, so I was more than okay with her. The representation of Esti and Ronit's queerness were far from conventional, but there were moments in the text where I really enjoyed the depictions of their sexuality, even if I didn't like them as a couple. I also really learned a lot (this is starting to sound like a book report rather than a goodreads review, sorry!) about the Orthodox Jewish community, and it was nice the way Alderman didn't really try to tell you how to feel about the way these characters lived, but it wasn't without comment.