Author: Suri Rosen
Publisher: ECW Press
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
Despite the fact that I had a few issues with this novel, I ended up loving it. It was really well-written for the most part, very imaginative and inventive, and it told a really good story. Surprisingly, it also revealed an admirably strong central female character, and it was this, above all else, which won my heart, because characters like this one are rare in YA literature, to be avidly sought after, and treasured when found (and that's an order!).
This is a first person PoV YA novel about a 17-year-old girl, Raina Resnik who has moved to Toronto and now attends the Toronto Hebrew School for girls instead of the New York Hebrew school for girls. Big move, huh? My first question was why she hadn't stayed in NYC with her older sister, especially since said sibling is about to get married. It bothered me that I never got a really satisfactory answer to this question.
Normally I don't like 1PoV because it's rarely done well, but this one wasn't obnoxious. On the contrary, Raina's voice was quite endearing and highly entertaining. The novel opened with amusing commentary which continued throughout the novel. It's one of the two main reasons why I ended up loving this (the other being Raina's strength, of course), but it was not all plain sailing for me. Initially, the amusement at the narration was undermined somewhat by the confusion I felt.
I have to confess that I began this novel a little ferblunjit; I really didn't get what was going on. It was like I'd begun reading a sequel without having read the first volume. Eventually I grasped that the reason that Raina had to move was because her mom and dad had moved to Hong Kong for business reasons, but I didn't really get a good explanation as to why Raina hadn't gone with them. That is to say that there was a reason given, but it not only seemed inadequate to me, it also seemed out of step with how the rest of the novel was told in terms of how few choices Raina had available to her.
Having failed to travel with her parents, I didn't get why Raina couldn't stay in NYC with her sister Leah, who is seven years older, and getting married two months hence. She could have stayed, helped with the wedding preparations, and finished up her last year at her school with her friends. Why didn't she?
Maybe I missed something, but none of the Toronto move made sense at all, especially since she also had an aunt in NYC with whom she could have stayed. I don't recall reading a real explanation for all of this. Of course, I may have missed it in the confusion, but it seemed to me that the only reason she'd gone to Toronto was that there was another Hebrew school for girls there - and another aunt, but this begs the question as to why such a school was so indispensable. That's something which was never addressed.
Yes, there is some unspecified 'incident' at her New York City school, with Raina evidently having been expelled, but the nature of this isn't revealed until the end of the novel and when it is, it seems really inadequate. Besides that, her school wasn't the only one in NYC. She still could have stayed - so again, confusion. I would have preferred a more solid foundation for the novel to rest upon, but in the end, it really didn't matter because the story took over (more on that phrase later!) and dominated everything so very effectively.
I think part of the problem was that Playing With Matches assumes a reader who is intimately familiar with Jewish customs. Now I've lived in Israel (as a volunteer on the kibbutz system) for some six months. I'm also familiar with some Jewish and Judaic culture from reading various materials (fictional and otherwise), and from watching movies and documentaries. This doesn't, of course, make me an expert, not even close, but I do feel like I'm a little bit in familiar territory, yet even with that background, a lot of the comments and references were completely lost on me. A broader approach aimed at a wider readership would have been better for me.
I really didn't get this issue of Raina having to attend Hebrew schools for girls like there is no other option. There's no indication as to why this was such a requirement, since neither she nor any of her family appeared particularly orthodox Judaists (their only real religion seems to have been baseball!), so at that point, only three chapters in, I was really confused and not feeling very welcome! Feeling uncomfortable and for the wrong reasons is not a great start to a new relationship with an author! Fortunately in the end, Suri Rosen proved to me that she had what it took to win me over to her side very much in the same manner in which her character Raina proved the same thing in her own story. Amusing coincidence, huh?
I have to say that there was something of a claustrophobic feeling here, too. The novel was entirely about Jewish people and Jewish lifestyles and Jewish relationships. None of the characters appeared to know anyone or to have any friends who were not themselves Jewish. They appeared to exist and interact only within their own isolated community. I found that to be rather offensive, especially in a climate where we have major issues blowing up between Israelis and the Palestinians even as I write this review. Maybe this is how some people are, but it's not how novelists are compelled to write about people. Maybe there are 'enclaves' like this in Toronto and other cities, but it seemed a bit much to cook-up all of this without adding - if I can put it this way - some leavening from a wider perspective.
But that's just me! Now back to the story in progress. When Leah shows up at the bus station in Toronto, Raina discovers that the wedding is off. Raina, who's supposedly so close to her, has to learn this almost second-hand when her sister arrives sans wedding gown and sans engagement! Worse, Leah is evidently blaming Raina for the break-up because the latter never did trust Ben, the ex. Oy gevalt! So yes, this provided a nice thrust of conflict into the novel, but it was accompanied by some unfortunate confusion once more!
I didn't get why, if they were supposedly so close, Leah had not mentioned to Raina this failure to engage as it were, before she arrived in person. Yes, she apparently (and for no good reason), blamed her sister for being 'Raina on her parade' so to speak, but if they were so close, why was it not even touched upon? Or are we to understand that Raina is lying about how close they were or that she was clueless as to the deteriorating state of their relationship? If so, how can we trust anything else which this narrator tells us? This bothered me because it reflected badly on Raina (and unfairly as it turned out). I don't like anyone messing with Raina like that!
I don't want to give much more away. That would ruin the story, and this is such a good story that it deserves the benefit of any doubts. I really did enjoy it immensely despite all my kvetching. I liked Raina very much as a character - Leah not so much - and I loved the way the story kept opening up more levels, like a matryoshka doll. Let me confine myself to saying that Raina ends up becoming a bit of a shadken (she calls herself "Matchmaven" - hence the novel's title) purely by accident (if you can imagine that!), to which her own sister ends up 'subscribing'. So the engine of the novel becomes the question of whether Raina can find her sister a match and get back into her good graces while striving for good grades? Good grief! Or is Raina simply playing with matches? Will she be kosher or toast?
One final issue, and this isn't just about this novel, but about far to many YA novels penned by female writers. I was distressed by the stark emphasis on beauty and on girls needing guys to be complete. That was a bit much for me and rather demeaning to women. Being a shayner maidel only gets you so far (and not very far at all with me), and I know that too many people only see women skin deep, but that doesn't mean we have to perpetuate stereotypes or demeaning traditions. I sincerely hope that Jewish girls are not defined and confined by overly idealistic concepts beauty and a 'need' to find a guy to make them complete, but given how people are, maybe they are. Why would they be any different from any other girls?
As much as I liked the novel, I did feel that more could have been done here. I think this is a duty of YA authors, especially of female ones, and I think it's also sadly neglected. It's quite simply wrong to perpetuate clichés of 'beauty' when women have so much more to offer and when, in the end, beauty (when defined as skin-deep appearance) means so very little.
I know that authors (for the most part) understand this, but that understanding counts for nothing if it isn't translated into the written word. Can we not include other traits, such as integrity, loyalty, strength of character, smarts, decency, self-sacrifice, kindness, generosity of spirit, and so on? If you must include beauty, can it not be shown to be a result of those character traits rather than the sole product of a millimeter depth of skin? can we not show that a character's beauty (or handsomeness if the character is male) stems from those things - or from those things as well as (if you must), physical appearance. Please?
On the other side of the coin, this story was very engrossing, with Raina increasingly feeling like a shlimazl as her plans subside. She gets into one highly entertaining and unanticipated scrape after another (such as texting back and forth with someone who doesn't know who you are, but who happens, as you discover, to be in the bathroom stall right next to yours...). None of these escapades felt artificial or unrealistic, so kudos to Suri Rosen for her gifted imagination, quirky inventiveness, and her sheer writing skill. Even with the reservations I've mentioned, I was very entertained and I enjoyed this read a great deal. Since this blog is actually all about writing, I very much appreciated a chance to read some of this quality, and I look forward to her next story with great anticipation.
Talking of which, here's an interesting writing issue to leave you with: on page 130, we read, "Matchmaven had overtaken my life." Is this wrong? Discuss! I would have written "Matchmaven had taken over my life" but is that better? Does it mean the same thing? How about "My life had been overtaken by Matchmaven"?
It's not critically important to the story, but it is the kind of thing which my rather warped and disturbed mind latches upon! After all, without words, there are no stories, and without putting those words together just so, there is no literature. It's always worth giving some thought to these things. Is there a there a perfect way of wording your sentence and how much, exactly, does it matter? If you agonize over an issue like this are you hindering completion of your novel or making it that bit more memorable?
Playing With Matches is a particularly appropriate title for this novel, but it does bury it somewhat amongst so many others with that same title. Hopefully this one will stand out above those others. It deserves to since it's such a worthy read, and Suri Rosen is a writer with a future.
