I finished this book in a day and found it very hard to put down.
It reads as the memoir of a woman who grew up in a religious Jewish household, left the fray to lead a lifestyle of sex and “liberation” and returned to join the ultra-religious Hasidic community. The book promised to highlight the struggles a woman faced in choosing between a religious lifestyle and a non-religious one. And that is my biggest issue with the book. The religious lifestyle she describes consists of a joyless virtually loveless existence full of empty rules, stringencies, and empty relationships. The “non-religious” lifestyle she chooses consists of adultery, promiscuous sex, drug use, lesbianism, more drug use, and more promiscuous sex.
I had truly wanted to relate to the author, as I am a (mostly happy) Orthodox woman myself, but I do question what “life on the other side of the fence” might be like from time to time. I found it impossible to do so for two reasons. First the author’s experience of Judaism was skewed, extreme, and not an accurate glimpse of mainstream Orthodoxy. Second, her non-religious lifestyle disgusted me and I have a hard time believing most secular people engage in half the things the author happily did in her pursuit of a “non-religious” way of life.
Like some other reviewers I found some of the incidents related strained belief. A woman who repeatedly professes to love G-d so much she joins the most extreme and ascetic Orthodox branch happily recounts how she lost her virginity in a synagogue of all places.
Her emotions just did not ring true to me. Nor did I really get a sense of genuine spirituality coming from the author.
I hope anyone reading this book realizes the views of this author are extreme and her experiences are not shared by the majority of Orthodox Jewish women. Some of us do live balanced, fulfilling and happy lives, and interact with genuinely caring and loving people.