A review by laurenmitchell
The Wizardry of Jewish Women by Gillian Polack
5.0
I feel that this is one of those books that I will come back to and appreciate something new in it each time. On the first read-through, the one I have just completed, I felt most drawn to Rhonda's story.
I really liked how matter-of-fact the usage of magic was throughout the book. It went so well with how matter-of-fact everything was: there wasn't a whole lot of infodumping about the characters' backstories; everything just came out organically. It seems like that's something basic that any book should provide, but unlike some books I've read I never had a sense of frustration that I didn't know enough about the characters to understand what was going on.
There is just so much gentle wisdom in this book that I know I'll be rereading it more than once.
Spoiler
I felt an affinity with her, and I spent most of the book sure that it would turn out that all her online friends would be other screennames of her own. The fact that they didn't speaks to Gillian's ability to challenge her readers' expectations, and it's only one example of how she does.I really liked how matter-of-fact the usage of magic was throughout the book. It went so well with how matter-of-fact everything was: there wasn't a whole lot of infodumping about the characters' backstories; everything just came out organically. It seems like that's something basic that any book should provide, but unlike some books I've read I never had a sense of frustration that I didn't know enough about the characters to understand what was going on.
There is just so much gentle wisdom in this book that I know I'll be rereading it more than once.