Goy Crazy, a review by Michy

Title:  Goy Crazy

Author: Melissa Schorr

Format:

Price:

Anywho, I read a book called Goy Crazy, by Melissa Schorr. And yes, it really is called Goy Crazy. I found it to be a very strange book, especially since I’m not religious… But I’m fairly certain a “goy” is a Christian boy… Anyway… This is the story of Rachel Lowenstein. She’s a Jewish fifteen-year-old girl who’s never really had a serious boyfriend, and is yearning for some action in the love department. And her parents are kind of religious… obsessed. Kind of. 

At her brother’s bar mitzvah, she meets Luke. Anywho, she falls for him. This is bad, very bad, seeing as he’s Christian. Bad news for Rachel. So, on the only occasion that the Lowenstein family goes to service, she asks a friend, named Leah, for some guidance. Leah asks if her parents would let her date him because he’s Christian. Which brings up more questions. Then at school, she plays dumb in geometry, her friend goes on a crazy no-meat diet, and she hates gym-class. So, after fast, Rachel and Leah decide to go stalk Luke until they can eat, and Luke ignores her. So she makes up some New Year’s resolutions: Get Luke, Flirt madly with some popular guys, wash her face with Proactive, stop biting her nails, get to geometry on time, stop letting her parents rule her life, and break the teen commandments. Simple. You would think so, but the adventures Rachel has may prove otherwise.

Character Analysis: Rachel Lowenstein: Typical fifteen year old girl, well, woman, with acne and no confidence, in my opinion. She has her father’s hair, “kinky, black,” and apparently really high metabolism. She is really nervous, and, well, a “stereo-typical” girl, nervous about guy issues, why she doesn’t have a boyfriend, etc, ect, ect. Then she starts to “not understand” geometry, and she starts getting attention from the guys in her class. And all this is after she meets her future boyfriend, Luke. She’s Jewish, and her family isn’t very religious, they almost never go to service, but her brother is “interested” in their culture (meaning he wants more video games), so her parents always are so thrilled that their culture will be passed on. By the end of the book, she grows up a lot, I think, because she takes control of a bad situation and uses her knowledge to solve the problem. Her major motivation is to get a boyfriend, namely, Luke. This drives her throughout the book to defy her parents, and she wouldn’t (most likely) have the nerve to use her quick thinking to solve the big issue at the end of the book.

Theme: I think that the theme is that you almost always fall for the people who could potentially hurt you the most, and that the people you fall for are, most of the time, the people who will hurt you the most. Oh, and don’t lie to your parents, because in most cases, they find out anyway.

Strengths, weaknesses, favorite parts of the book: Some strengths were that it was at times humorous, or fairly serious, and the mood kept changing. This was also one of the weaknesses. It could be very hard to follow at times, and was especially confusing for me not being Jewish. I didn’t really have a favorite part of the book, but I enjoyed it as a whole.

Ending thoughts: It was an interesting book, I thought, and I really liked the ending. I didn’t really like Luke much, so I wasn’t bummed about what happens with him. I was glad that Rachel starting thinking about Howard, I liked Howard, I thought that he was an interesting character and hard to figure out. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 chocolate bars (swearing)

Appropriate Rating: Vampire, again, swearing.

Cover Thoughts: I really don’t think the cover shows the theme of the book, or what the book is about. It shows Rachel “looking” over at Luke, which is strange because they don’t even go to the same school…