Hearts Alight

This book delivers completely on the promise of its lovely cover art. It's a cozy and sweet Hanukkah romance. I don't read a lot of contemporary novels, but I enjoyed this book very much, at least partly because the main character was easy for me to identify with.

Dave is young, late twenties, but his attitude towards his family's Hanukkah celebrations has always been a little bit curmudgeonly. He's not sure Hanukkah should be celebrated in a similar way to Christmas, and he's also afraid that the gifts he can afford to buy won't measure up.

Dave is hesitant to pursue a relationship with his crush, Amit, who is the uncle of his best friend and brother-in-law. Dave's somewhat awkward around other people, in ways that reflect my own experiences with social anxiety. There is no real conflict between anyone in this story, only between Dave and his own difficulties with people. So it's great to see him become close to Amit, more comfortable with both his and Amit's families, and excited for the future.

The supernatural elements blend right into the rest of the story, in a magical-realism sort of way. I also really like the detailed Dungeons & Dragons scene, not just because I enjoy RPGs, but because it serves to show Amit's playfulness. That was the point in the story when I first felt that these two characters definitely belong together.

If you like sweet holiday reads, I highly recommend this warm and cuddly book. It has definitely put me in the holiday spirit. It also made me very hungry for latkes - I may need to make some myself. :-)

2.5 stars. Interesting concept but the execution was underdeveloped and the romance was uninspiring. Dave finds out that the guy he's crushing on, Amit, is a golem - in Jewish folklore, a man created from clay - but other than that fact, we don't learn anything interesting about his existence, and everyone is so blase about his identity that it loses any of its magic. So many questions are unanswered, or asked and quickly dismissed (like the unsolvable dilemma that Amit is immortal and Dave is not). The author seems more interested in describing the Dungeons & Dragons game that Dave loves than in exploring the half-hearted fantasy he has created.

I'd love to be able to add this to the small canon of recommended romances with Jewish characters (and the even smaller canon of M/M Jewish romances) but it's just not strong enough.