First published 2020
Deborah Feldman grows up in the Satmar community of Hasidic Judaism, where strict rules dictate her clothing, conversations, and reading material. She finds solace in forbidden books by Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott, discovering worlds beyond her controlled existence. As a teenager, she enters an arranged marriage with a stranger that proves both sexually and emotionally troubled. The gap widens between what Deborah wants for herself and what her community expects from a dutiful Satmar wife. When she gives birth at nineteen, motherhood forces a critical decision. She must choose between staying trapped in a life that suffocates her spirit or finding the courage to leave everything she has ever known. Her young son becomes the catalyst that pushes her toward freedom, even though escape means abandoning her family, community, and religious identity forever.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, autobiography, memoir, biography-memoir, jewish
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Hasidic Judaism, Satmar
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
400 pages · Paperback · Nemesis Kitap
Content warnings: abuse, emotional-abuse, sexism