March 11, 2020
Corey’s Book Corner Blog
Matzah Ball Surprise by Laura Brown. Entangled Lovestruck. 2020.
Take a moment just to look at the cover for this book. This cover makes me incredibly happy. It is so rare to find covers for romances that have such clear Jewish representation. The Jewish couple on this cover are gorgeous together, cheerful, have amazing chemistry, are leaning forehead to forehead, on of the most intimate and romantic poses that exists, and they are clearly so into each other. This cover has my heart and I’m over the moon that it exists, as a Jewish romance reader who rarely sees myself on the page, and even more rarely sees folks that look like they could be in my community or my family on the cover of a romance.
I’m really happy that this book exists. As a Jewish reader, it means a lot to get to read a romance between Jewish characters that’s set at a significant Jewish family holiday like Passover, where the Jewish representation resonates. I want many more books like this, a wide abundance of romances with Jewish MCs, that honors the incredible diversity of Jewishness, Jewish cultural experiences and Jewish religious traditions. I’ve been excited to read this book since I first heard it was coming, and it feels like I’ve been waiting to read it for a very long time.
I wish it hit the spot for me more than it did. There is a lot of complicated plot going on, and I got a bit lost in that, it’s much more plot driven than character driven, and character driven romances are really much more my thing. I wanted to connect more with the characters, but struggled with that, felt like I couldn’t really get why they were making the choices they did or what was going on with them, what they were feeling and thinking.
This is a bring a fake boyfriend home for the holidays m/f contemporary romance, set at Passover, with two Jewish MCs. The hero is Deaf, and a people pleasing fixer who doesn’t really commit to anyone. The heroine is newly out of an emotionally abusive relationship and still licking her wounds from that, has trust issues, and dislikes change. They are strangers who go to the same gym, and she impulsively asks him to be her fake boyfriend for the holiday when she realizes that her mom will try setting her up with someone otherwise. And of course, there is only one bed.
I loved the family relationships, they felt so real and culturally resonant. The complexities, the ways the characters were grappling with grief, the different ways Gaby’s relatives gave Levi a hard time, all of the ways the family interactions were layered really hit the spot for me. This is one of the places where the book really shines. I also loved the dog a lot, and would have been glad for even more dog presence in the story.
The MCs have some lovely chemistry, and I enjoyed that aspect of their connection. Their romantic attraction and sexual attraction was very present and palpable, and I enjoyed watching the ways they navigated that, it made for some really lovely moments. The sex scenes are high heat and drawn with the kinds of detail I enjoy.
The Deaf representation was nuanced and complex. So much of the story took place in situations that were mostly inaccessible for the Deaf MC, and that wasn’t elided, but instead was consistently lampshaded in ways that felt really right for this kind of story, but were also difficult to sit with as a disabled reader because I kept connecting to both my frustration and alienation around access issues of this sort. It made for an uncomfortably intense read, and made me very aware of my hearing privilege, while still being resonant with my own experiences of difficulty around auditory processing in groups. I am not Deaf, so I can’t speak to the accuracy of the representation, but the access issues definitely rung true for me as a disabled reader, and I believe the author is Hard of Hearing. I especially appreciated the way communication issues were framed as a constant difficulty with the heroine, and were treated as hugely impactful.
The heroine is recovering from what I’d characterize as an emotionally abusive relationship, and this aspect of the story felt rather thinly drawn, and like it didn’t give enough care to this kind of trauma and the way it works, but instead seemed to set this up as a thing the hero could fix and rescue her from. I found this aspect of the story troubling, and wish that it had been depicted with more care and complexity.
I enjoy fake relationships as a trope, and am not as bothered by the lying aspect as I know some readers are, but that’s generally because the characters are not lying to each other (except perhaps not admitting their feelings), but instead are creating new intimacy with each other in this heightened circumstance that helps reveal their feelings to themselves and each other. The fact that the hero was lying to the heroine for most of the story put a real damper on my enjoyment of this trope. I don’t think that those tropes are a good combination, they just seemed to establish him as a liar across the board.
I had a hard time rooting for them as a couple, which is a big struggle for me in a romance. It wasn’t just the rescue dynamic, though that really didn’t work for me, which made the reconciliation at the end really not work for me. It was also that the hero lied to her for so long, and I couldn’t really figure out why he was doing that. It didn’t really feel like he had a good reason to do it. The whole subplot with his ex was drawn in this really confusing way because it seemed like she was a coercive manipulative jerk but we were also supposed to sympathize with her, and the way the hero interacted with her didn’t make sense to me, I couldn’t get what his motivations were or why he was making these choices. He seemed like he wasn’t taking responsibility for anything he was doing for 95% of the book, like things happened to him and he just tried to muddle through them. Given how hurtful his lies were to the heroine and the fact that [highlight to read] he slept with her before telling her the truth, it was really hard for me to believe that he was right for her at all. It didn’t feel like he took responsibility or apologized appropriately. This was a story that needed a much better grovel for it to have a chance of working for me, unfortunately. As it is, the ending felt rushed and I wasn’t on board with them as a couple.
As a holiday romance, it had some of the elements that I like: complex family dynamics, specific traditions, going home for the holidays and all the ways that moves things along. That said, I would have liked a bit more sinking into the details of the holiday and feelings about the holiday intertwined in the story. Maybe it’s just because Passover is my favorite holiday, but I wanted a deeper sense of the seder and the foods and the way the characters felt about the holiday. For me, holiday romances work best when the holiday is almost another MC in the story, and this treated it more like a setting. I do think that this is a personal taste thing, and many folks will be glad for the Passover details and the centering of one of the Jewish high holidays as important in the story.
Representation
- Jewish white woman MC with trauma
- Deaf Jewish white man MC
- Jewish white woman author.
Content Warnings (in white, highlight to read)
Ableism, both casual and also embedded in family dynamics. Situations where access is an ongoing issue. Former emotionally abusive relationship that created trauma for the MC. Coercion and manipulation from an ex. Grief; death of a parent in the past. Sex on the page.
Disclosures
- Source of the book: ARC from the publisher via Netgalley
- I am friends with the author on Twitter.
- All links to Amazon will be affiliate ones. If you buy through those links, I will make a small amount of money on that sale (which I plan to use to buy more books to review), but it will not add any to the cost of your product. It comes out of the company’s profits.
Source: coreysbookcorner.wordpress.com/2020/03/11/review-of-matzah-ball-surprise/
