ilana
It was fine. The concept was interesting, but the main character's engagement with her Jewish identity seemed rather superficial, which didn't make a lot of of sense to me for something that was supposed to be a big part of animating her motivation. It's also sort of hard to get behind a character who not only doesn't seem to know what she wants out of life but who doesn't seem to care. We're informed that Luzia is a rebel, an iconoclast, but she is really very passive. I kept waiting for her to make a decision for herself, but things just sort of... happened to her. I was ultimately more interested in what became of her erstwhile employer than what became of the main character herself. As far as the crypto-Jewish elements, it very much read as the author using this framework to explore her own identity and felt shallow.
It was fine. The concept was interesting, but the main character's engagement with her Jewish identity seemed rather superficial, which didn't make a lot of of sense to me for something that was supposed to be a big part of animating her motivation. It's also sort of hard to get behind a character who not only doesn't seem to know what she wants out of life but who doesn't seem to care. We're informed that Luzia is a rebel, an iconoclast, but she is really very passive. I kept waiting for her to make a decision for herself, but things just sort of... happened to her. I was ultimately more interested in what became of her erstwhile employer than what became of the main character herself. As far as the crypto-Jewish elements, it very much read as the author using this framework to explore her own identity and felt shallow.