Lori Goldstein
Författare till Becoming Jinn
Verk av Lori Goldstein
The Genius of Jinn 1 exemplar
Genius of Jinn: A Short Story 1 exemplar
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
Det finns inga Allmänna fakta än om den här författaren. Du kan lägga till några.
Medlemmar
Recensioner
Listor
Priser
Du skulle kanske också gilla
Statistik
- Verk
- 9
- Medlemmar
- 288
- Popularitet
- #81,142
- Betyg
- 3.2
- Recensioner
- 11
- ISBN
- 15
I didn't buy the girls' change from enemies to friends, when I was reading this. I didn't find any of them likeable. I didn't care about who they missed and why, nor about things at stake for them. The writing just wasn't there for me. The characters...weren't naive. Naive isn't the right word. They were operating with the information given to them about life who had lived it in very specific ways. None of these girls set themselves up an Option B if this didn't work out, and readers got to see things fall apart for Lucy. I disliked Lucy perhaps the most. Stereotypes don't exist in a vacuum, and the author, who has a stereotypically Ashkenaz Jewish last name, reached for some of the most harmful ones.
Sooo I've been through this before, and I'm going to make a snap judgment. Lori Goldstein doesn't come up during a two-second "Lori Goldstein ya author Jewish" search at all. Her book does, in a Kirkus Review. She might wail "But I'm Jewish!" if challenged on her portrayal of Lucy. I'm Jewish, too, lady, and I can question your choices. Lucy is a socialite whose mother is a high-powered woman in tech and whose father she only talks to once a year. IIRC, the author um, had him actually live in Israel. She is arrogant, uses flirting to get what she wants, is rude, overbearing, spoiled, classist, willfully ignorant, and will face no real consequences for her actions throughout life. Sure, she doesn't get into an exclusive school, but that's about it. I do not like when characters are portrayed like this. I did like the moment where she hesitates every single time to wear her Star of David, although author, would it have killed you to make it a chai symbol? Looks like a pi symbol, could have led to little math jokes. Anyway, the reluctance to wear her Star of David and the tucking it away on velvet fit very, very well with her character and was a choice I did not hate--I understood. When she finally does wear it, the scene is contrived and it happened at a point when I wanted the book to be over.
Lucy is also sexually harassed and preyed upon by the leader of the summer camp named Ryan, and her ex-boyfriend Gavin makes crude sex jokes about her. Gavin and she have terrible, terrible boundaries. They are teenagers but ugggghhh. Also, these are known, pervasive and horrid Jewish girl stereotypes, these especially. I did -not- appreciate having to sit through them on the page. And yet, I didn't -have- to, but I didn't feel like putting the book down quite yet. There's a moment that's supposed to be endearing with Lucy tossing out her nail polish and her roommates renaming the polish and giving them back to her, but it made my skin crawl. And I've worn nail polish without fail since age twelve. Mostly black, although I used a bottle of blue once very briefly, and had a red phase going in sophomore year of high school for a bit. But I should have related to the nail polish scenes and mentions. I did not.
Lots of mixed-to-negative feelings on every aspect of the story. Not happy, not engaged with much. I wasn't the intended audience, but I did live the real-life version of the story. Went to the right school program (ABA accredited and attorneys would sit up a little straighter when they heard me speak glowingly of it), didn't pick an option B (because paralegal was gonna be the career that finally stuck, dammit, and I was gonna rock at it), landed a competitive internship (I was one of the two people who got it for the seven-month period), worked hard. Everything pointed to me having a bright future and awesome career ahead of me. The actual result was that what few jobs I was able to land over the next five years always ended after four months, often much sooner and for stupid reasons. I live in a state where people can be fired for any reason or for no reason at all. Pay is higher than the minimum wage so the employer doesn't have to pay your healthcare. I wish I were exaggerating. The day I read this book, I had just gotten fired after working at a place for five days. I wondered a lot while reading the book if my opinion would have been different had I a more stable work history and a far less cynical and jaded outlook.… (mer)