The Forbidden Book

by Sacha Lamb

Dybbuks.
Illegal printing.
A genderqueer lesbian with a knife.
Set against a backdrop of literary censorship and growing Jewish political consciousness, Sydney Taylor and Stonewall award-winning Sacha Lamb's sophomore novel is a soaring exploration of identity, survival, and ultimately, hope.

On the night before her wedding, 17-year-old Sorel leaps from a window and runs away from her life. To keep from being discovered, she takes on the male identity of Isser Jacobs — but it soon becomes clear that there is a real Isser Jacobs, and people want him dead. Her mistaken identity takes Sorel into the dark underworld of her small city in the Pale of Settlement, where smugglers, forgers, and wicked angels fight for control of the Jewish community. In order to make it out, Sorel must discover who Isser Jacobs really is — and who she wants to be.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Jewish, Young Adult, LGBT, Fiction, Queer

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2024

Reviews

[max theodore]

i know i still have to read when the angels left the old country but. GENDERQUEER LESBIANS???? HELLO

[Kaa]

The folklore was interesting, but the pace was a bit off for me - it felt like a lot of important pieces were introduced too close to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: Jewish genderqueer lesbian mc, Jewish side characters

CWs: period typical antisemitism

[Curlemagne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look, there was no world in which I was going to dislike this book. The question was only how much would I like it. And from the first sentence about Sorel Kalmans desperate to escape her wedding, I was hooked.

Fans of Ashkenazi shtetlcore, Yentl (Isaac Bashevis Singer's original story as well as the Streisand movie), S. An-sky's play The Dybbuk, Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver, Diana Wynne Jones's The Magicians of Caprona, and of course Lamb's previous book When The Angels Left The Old Country will all find things to rejoice in here; as a fan of all of the above, of course I was verklempt. I wonder what it would have been like to read this book withOUT a background in dybbuk lore. Everyone who likes Jewish magic should see the 1937 movie of The Dybbuk if you get a chance.

The plot is not obvious, the solution to the dilemma is creative and earned, there are no easy or cartoonish villains, the details are so specific and vivid (the mold and mud of poor homes on a river bank, the decorated leather sheath of the knife, hair black as ink!) This book is a gift from one Jew to another, confident and unassimilated and unconcerned with codeswitching to explain the minor mysteries to those who lack context or Yiddish knowledge. The queer themes here are clear but not belabored (Isser's fondness for Shulem-Yontif, Sorel-Alter's appreciation for Adela's beauty), and Sorel-Isser-Alter's shifting gender identity is superb. This isn't a queer romance or even a typically triumphant trans narrative, it's a coming of age for a protagonist who embraces their demon possession and builds a new life out of it, without ever losing their surly, resentful edges.

I'm going to enjoy reading this over and over again, savoring the details. A city named Esrog! Too good.

(If this review was incoherent to you, my apologies. I am so incoherently pleased to have read it.)

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed The Forbidden Book for sure, although it did not quite live up to the author's debut novel When the Angels Left the Old Country. The story did some cool things with gender and social power and created room for different types of faith within a faith. But it was bit hard for me to get into to begin with and while I found the ending satisfying, it also felt very wrapped in a bow. This might be more of a me problem - because I prefer books that are more about the characters than the mystery. And while I enjoyed the cast of characters, I didn't feel a strong connection to the characters, I didn't feel like we spent much time getting to know them.

I ended up listening to the audiobook and it was well narrated and made for a quicker read than I might have done with my eyes.

I received a digital Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley and Levine Querido in exchange for an honest review.

[Jamie Feuerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly didn’t want to pick this book up. I really forced myself to read the last part of it and it kind of put me into a reading slump. My expectations were so high with When Angels Left the Old Country being one of my favorite books of all time, and this sadly did not live up the standard that book set. The pace felt slow, yet the book itself felt rushed. It was also really confusing at times but I didn’t care enough to go back and figure out what was happening. I’ll definitely give still Sacha Lamb another try with whatever they publish next, but this book sadly was not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC.

[niko :3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really know what to say about this book. The characters were quite forgettable and they had basically no personality traits. The book was either too short or too complex for its length. I would reread passages multiple times and still have no clue what was going on. The story was told in the fashion of a fairy tale, with the syntax and diction choices. I would say it reached middling success, because in my opinion, it hindered the book. It was still a bunch of fun, though, and I am a sucker for Jewish horror elements…

[Borka Szilágyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3,5
I think I would've liked this more if I loved their previous book less.
I missed the unique way of storytelling and pacing.
It was really easy to read this book but I'm not gonna re-read it anytime soon unfortunately.

[Katrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sacha Lamb's "When The Angels Left The Old Country" is one of my all-time favourites, so when I got a chance to read an ARC of The Forbidden Book I was elated, but also nervous, because how does someone follow up a book like that?
With a knife-wielding, genderqueer, possessed runaway lesbian, of course.

The Forbidden Book follows Sorel as she jumps out the window the night before her wedding and into a murder mystery involving smugglers, illegal pamphlets, a religious and political power struggle as well as angels of death. Accompanied by a dybbuk she'll discover more about the world she's been kept apart from as well as about who she is and who she wants to become.

The Forbidden Book is another fantastical exploration of history, Jewish mysticism, and queer identity, but it is also definitely not just a retread of Lamb's previous novel. The setting feels rich, the characters deep, and the mystical elements superb. My main criticism is that I feel the story would have benefited from being longer. I don't know if I'd call it rushed but giving Sorel a bit more time to breathe, especially in the conclusion, would have been appreciated. I also personally would have liked to see more of the political pamphlet side, but that is very much a me thing.

As it is, Lamb builds fantastic worlds that I wouldn't mind spending a little more time in, and I definitely look forward to rereading the finished book - out October 2024!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Levine Querido for providing the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Stephanie Ridiculous · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fine. The thoroughly Jewish culture is fun to read, and I genuinely liked our characters. However, I didn't really jive with the plot - it felt like it was supposed to be a quick distraction before homegirl actually moved on and start her new life but it kept being the main focus. By the time it started gelling for me we were pretty far in. The blurb starting with "a genderqueer lesbian with a knife" also totally oversold what was actually happening in the pages - it felt like buzz words to get traction that had little to do with the story.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up.

The night before she is due to be married, Sorel runs away from her life, along the way accidentally assuming the identity of Isser Jacobs and dropping herself into a murder mystery involving Jewish mysticism, political pamphlets, and a power struggle the real Isser Jacobs was caught in the middle of.

This is one of those books that is absolutely rooted in Jewishness in a very satisfying way. I absolutely loved all of the Jewish magic. Sorel's world was very richly imagined and described, particularly the inter-community dynamics between the groups of more religious and more secular Jews and the way Sorel navigates her new gender presentation. The writing is enticing and efficient, and I enjoyed following Sorel as she discovers the world outside her father's estate.

However, a lot of the other elements of the book felt a little rushed, which I think stems from the fact that while the world-building was beautiful, Sorel herself could've been more developed. She didn't seem to grow as a character in a way that felt natural or fulfilling to the journey she was on, and I never felt I knew her on a deeper level. Also, while the gender and sexuality elements were appropriately period-typical in a way I enjoyed, the book is being marketed with a more overt queer representation, which might disappoint some readers.

This is still a well-written, beautifully Jewish, and entertaining book, which I will be recommending. The character beats just didn't quite hit as successfully as I'd wanted them to.

[Kayleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sacha Lamb is a very talented author. The way they incorporated queerness into a historic setting without making it feel too modern is something I've really almost never seen done so successfully. It felt like a very Jewish exploration of queerness too which I really liked. I really really enjoyed it and am excited to read their other book!

This one was a little hard to rate because it definitely wasn't aimed at me as an audience--I found myself googling Yiddish words every 10 or so pages. I definitely learned a lot about Ashkenazi culture, history, and traditions, but I am also aware that I didn't grasp everything that happened in the story or all the themes as well as I would have if I had already had that background knowledge. I really admire them for writing a book that is so Ashkenazi and doesn't hold the reader's hand and explain every little thing. It was a short read and a quickly paced one, but definitely one I had to keep taking breaks from and thinking about and I appreciated it.

A good change in quality from the books I have been reading haha. Definitely recommend!

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

i loved the idea of this book. when the angels left the old country is one of my favorite books of all time, so i was thrilled to see sacha lamb wrote another full length novel. i LOVED the setting and premise of the book, but i think the actual writing and pacing could have been better and that would have made the book easier and more enjoyable to read. the book wasn’t even 250 pages long, pretty short for this genre (historical fantasy), but there were so many really important things packed into the last 60 pages or so that it felt rushed and confusing. WTALTOC had sentences so beautiful they would stop me in my tracks, change how i feel about life, etc, and this book didn’t do that for me. I do love how the author incorporated judaism and jewish mythology and magic without making a point of explaining every detail to the reader - that is a unique thing about their writing. the last thing is that parts of this book were really creepy!! i am literally afraid of everything so that was big and different for me and im proud of myself for actually reading and finishing it :)

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful adventure of a book! I’ve been complaining lately that a lot of books I read are so afraid that I might not understand something right away that they explain everything. This book trusts the reader to figure it out — the magic, the Yiddish, the characters’ motivations. It’s so good to be able to read and puzzle out the mysteries for yourself. This isn’t as ambitious a story as When the Angels Left the Old Country but it’s a really propulsive read with the same vivid sense of place and fabulous prose. If you like older “kidlit” fantasy like Earthsea, Robin McKinley, or Garth Nix, but tend to steer clear of modern YA because the plots feel too contrived, give this a try!

[The Page Ladies Book Club · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good read! It has a murder mystery, smugglers, and more! We follow Sorel on s join of self discovery and the world outside of her father's estate. The writing in this book is fantastic! The world building and character development was perfect! The ending did seem a little rushed but other than that it was an intriguing and exciting read with a touch of the supernatural!

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

So somehow when I picked out this book I missed the whole Jewish part and let me just tell you I was so confused when it started throwing out Jewish info and words. I then re-read the dust jacket and realized I had missed out on like the whole point of the book. Overall it was interesting since I knew nothing about Jewish life in whatever time period this is set in and certain superstitions/folk lore. The plot was pretty good and the character were okay but I wouldn't say it was spectacular. I think it would be an interesting YA book for people who are interesting in folklore of different cultures except that it did have some language so I personally wouldn't recommended to a kid - not anything crazy but just enough to make me not. Overall an easy fast read and an expansion to my "library"

[Beatrice]

A little bit of a sophomore slump, but the seeds of greatness are there! Looking forward to what’s next.

[Mimi Schweid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is such a lyrical gem. It gave me The Book Thief level of emotions in such a short story. I absolutely loved this and I'm ridiculously happy I semi impulsively bought it last week at work.

[Julia Mohler · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

[Hendrix Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trippy with anxiety-inducing consistent underlying menace. A few brief glimmers of joy and connection

[Peter Kilkelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

the central mystery was too mysterious until about 80% though the book for my taste. it does pay off in the end fairly well, but a bit of a slog to get there.

[Hilary Fry · Rating 3 out of 5]

YA

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Deke Moulton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reached page 53 and I’m going to DNF.

I think after When The Angels Left The Old Country (seriously one of my favorite Jewish books of all time) this book feels so flat and empty… there’s no witty conversational tone to the narration, no fun bantering between opposing characters, and no urgency. This book feels completely devoid of the fun that reading WTALTOC brought. That book I needed to put down after almost every paragraph to soak in the pure literal prose and the fun in the narration.

The Forbidden Book just reads extremely flat. It is so very much an extremely typical “girl runs away from a restrictive life,” that I feel like I’ve read a thousand times already and the narration is strikingly bland. I am surprised the two books were written by the same author because they read so differently. There’s no sense of place, no energizing feeling, even as the main character is running away from a marriage and is being chased… I seriously could not feel urgency or stakes.

For a real lyrical and immersive shtetl read I suggest Sister of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner, another all time favorite. Or reading WTALTOC again.

Disappointed, to say the least, but interested to see what Sacha Lamb does next…

[rotem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gosh, this book was boring. I borrowed it from Libby when I was just scrolling through, looking for my next read. I was so excited for what I thought was gay and Jewish representation. It was a whole lot of Jewish and a whole little gay. Reading it, especially the middle to the end, was a huge struggle. The author has my full respect and I’m sure she put a lot of effort in the book, but some parts honestly just felt like cultural appropriation. It was a bit much and I had no idea what was going on half the time. Every second was an excuse to squeeze in some Yiddish name or talk about some prayer. In conclusion, I did not enjoy this book and was bored the whole time, even with lots of “action” going on.

[Shana Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Fantastic atmosphere and sense of place/time, but I agree with other reviewers that the pacing felt off and the characters felt a little flat

[Leah M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded to 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Levine Querido for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn’t possibly love When the Angels Left the Old Country more than I did after discovering it as an ARC. However, that book left my expectations super high for Lamb’s latest book, and while it wasn’t a bad story, it didn’t fully live up to my expectations.

Simply the idea of a book set in the Pale of Settlement featuring dybbuks, illegal printing, and a genderqueer lesbian with a knife was enough to make me want to read this book. Dybbuks are souls that have unfinished business, and can possess people in an attempt to wrap up the loose ends of their life that are causing them to not move onto the world to come. In case you aren’t familiar with the Pale of Settlement, it was basically a huge ghetto spanning parts of the Russian Empire for Jewish people to be limited to. Most Jews were poor because they were restricted from most trades and couldn’t own property, farm, or trade with gentiles, and experienced pogroms by gentiles and the police themselves. The example that most people will be most familiar with is the setting from Fiddler on the Roof, which was set in the Pale of Settlement.


While there were some factors that didn’t work for me, I want to share my favorite thing about this book—its overt Jewishness. My grandfather lived in the Pale of Settlement, and I was so intrigued not only to picture what it looked like, but to get to see the dark underside of the shtetl (village), as opposed to Fiddler’s heavy emphasis on people who were just living their lives and abiding by the rules. The idea of dybbuks has been around in Jewish mysticism since medieval times, while the changing political climate and growing interest in the chapbooks printed and distributed makes me think that this was a later development.

The majority of the characters are Jewish, and there is a biased education system reflective of Russia’s longstanding suppression of Jewish communities. Children were required to attend Russian schools, unless they could sponsor some other child to attend the Russian school and allow their own to attend a yeshiva, or Jewish school, where they’d learn Hebrew and more about Jewish history, customs, and practices. The Jewishness of this book just feels so natural and realistic—so many characters quietly say the blessing for anything they consume, like observant Jews do in regular life to this day. However, the Jewishness isn’t overwhelming: Jewish mysticism and folklore inform the plot, but it isn’t so much to the point where someone who isn’t familiar with Jewishness wouldn’t be able to understand what is happening in the story.

Whenever I’m reading a book, I always want to see growth in the character. And since there was so much of that growth in When the Angels Left the Old Country, I was kind of expecting something that gets to dive deep into the characters and the story itself. However, the idea is fantastic but fell a little flat for me in execution. I was disappointed to see that the characters in this book weren’t as well-rendered, and they came across as relatively flat.

Dybbuk stories have been present in Jewish folklore, and the most recent one I read was The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros. Between that book and Lamb’s prior book, I’m sure you can understand why my expectations were sky-high. The dybbuk aspect of this book was one of my favorite elements, and how it contributed to the mystery. Even the magic in this story just felt natural, the way that it was threaded through the whole book—the possession, the nature of the titular forbidden book, and some unusual dreams were all central to the story, and it never felt forced.

Overall, this left me feeling as though there wasn’t enough book to fully flesh everything out, yet the story was rushed and didn’t feel like every loose end got tied up in a satisfying way. Despite the things that I didn’t love about this book, the fact that it was such a Jewish story kept me reading it. I did really love the setting of the story, and it was written so well that I could easily picture the places the characters were going to. While this wasn’t my favorite of the Lamb books that I’ve read, I’m still really curious to see what they’ve got in store for us, and I will absolutely be checking out their next book as well. This might be a good fit for you if you like historical fiction, Jewish stories, reading books where romance doesn’t overshadow the story itself, stories featuring queer characters, a good mystery, or even learning about some Jewish folklore and mysticism.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Dybbuks.
Illegal printing.
A genderqueer lesbian with a knife.
Set against a backdrop of literary censorship and growing Jewish political consciousness, Sydney Taylor and Stonewall award-winning Sacha Lamb's sophomore novel is a soaring exploration of identity, survival, and ultimately, hope.

On the night before her wedding, 17-year-old Sorel leaps from a window and runs away from her life. To keep from being discovered, she takes on the male identity of Isser Jacobs—but it soon becomes clear that there is a real Isser Jacobs, and people want him dead. Her mistaken identity takes Sorel into the dark underworld of her small city in the Pale of Settlement, where smugglers, forgers, and wicked angels fight for control of the Jewish community. In order to make it out, Sorel must discover who Isser Jacobs really is—and who she wants to be.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Sorel, a lesbian about to be forcibly married to a man, decides that, on balance, she'd rather not, jumps out her window and desperately hunts down a new way to live her life.

Supernatural and political hijinks ensue.

Well? What's the hold-up? Have you one-clicked yet? Just go get the blessèd thing already! You need a chuckle or two, and a high-stakes plot to keep you flippin' the pages. Absent the very interesting and unfamiliar-to-me cast of Jewish folkloric creatures of majgickq, this might have been three-and-a-half stars; the dybbuk alone crests over the four line and we're not even into the head of a woman who so absolutely rejects her cultural and societal repressions across multiple axes; repression so inimical to her that she does the extreme thing of becoming something and someone she chooses for herself. That this happens to land her in deep waters she'd never so much as heard of before made me root for her even harder.

Lesbian or not, give this book to every tween girl you know. More particularly the ones being raised in repressive god-ridden hate cults. Sorel, whose one flaw as a character that I found a bit itchy is that she springs out that window as herself and remains unchanged by the end of the story, is an archetype I wish more young women saw themselves in. (This is also why my stars stop at four.) She is not deeply shaded, but brightly, loudly limned. This kind of person is exciting to meet, often difficult to know well; still more often than that, troublesome.

We badly need that kind of woman in 2025.

Grow a few more, gift this amusing, edifying look into the magical corners of Jewishness widely.

[ancientreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full confession: I balked, briefly, at the opening line: I urgently wanted to cut the words "and left her life behind," because to my ear they weakened that arresting "On a full moon night, after a day of fasting, the young bride Sorel Kalmans leapt from a window." But When the Angels Left the Old Country was among the best novels I read in 2022, so I persevered, and even if The Forbidden Book's first sentence was a misstep, it was pretty much the last one.

Who are you? is the question at the heart of this novel, and it presents itself almost at once: Sorel, caught like a fox (watch that metaphor as you read this book) in the trappings of a wealthy Eastern European Jewish bride, looks in the mirror:

She might have found the face pretty, had she not been trying to see it as her own, and beneath the plucked brows and lip and the delicate brush of powder over her freckles, she couldn’t find any trace of herself.

But even after she bolts, dresses herself in the clothes she has stolen from a stableboy, and cuts her hair, she's not quite herself, or she's more than herself. Can I tempt readers if I remark that The Forbidden Book is in part a murder mystery, and that it may not always be desirable to get rid of a dybbuk?

I can't discuss what for me was the most intriguing aspect of The Forbidden Book without a major spoiler, so: What shall we make of the (implied) future relationship between Sorel and Adela, considering that Isaac's spirit has taken up permanent residence in Sorel's head? Sorel is clearly smitten with Adela; Adela looks at Sorel heatedly more than once, but Sorel believes those heated looks are really for Isaac. And Sorel's appearance seems to shift subtly from time to time, depending on how front-and-center Isaac is.

So identities are mutable and so are desires. Even the Angel of Death turns out to be not one but two, and each Angel is both destructive and salvific in nature.

The Forbidden Book, like When the Angels Left the Old Country, is a road-trip novel, although this time the characters travel back and forth within narrow bounds -- until the end, when, to put it as vaguely as possible, they're about to break free.

What else can I say except that you should hurry off and read this. Thanks to NetGalley and Levine Querido for the ARC: I feel lucky.

[seasalted.citrus (Topaz, Oliver) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Levine Querido for the eARC! I may have mixed feelings on this, but I’m glad that my first ARC was by an author whose work I’ve loved.

3.5 rounded up. I really enjoyed “When The Angels Left The Old County.—it was one of my faves of 2023–and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to read Sacha Lamb’s sophomore novel. The magical elements are sparse in the beginning, which made me worry I would find it too dry to continue, but I stuck around for the relatively quick pacing. In some ways, I’m glad I did. This is an interesting queer take on dybbuks, and since Sacha Lamb’s debut, I’ve loved how they intertwine gender into different supernatural and religious concepts. (Although at times, this can lean more towards the allegorical side.) The marketing banks on the queer rep, though, which I think is slightly misleading as it’s handled in a more complex(and subtle?) way inside the context of the historical setting. And for those who are looking forward to the promised lesbianism, there’s not much of it.

Although there was political tension, literary censorship and murder tied into the story’s plot, the writing style still maintained a cozy, fable feel. It complimented some of the fantastical elements well. I’m not a history nerd, but the 19th-century Russia setting felt immersive and seemed to be very researched. I also liked the sprinklings of Yiddish throughout. (I was alright with using Google, but I’m curious to see if there will be a glossary in the finished version of this book, like Lamb’s debut.)

The POV changes are slightly confusing. While the logic of them was explained towards the middle of the book, when it wasn’t just flashbacks anymore, it could be hard to keep up with who was who. The ending was also very abrupt, and had me wondering if I was missing a couple of details or pages in my digital copy. It’s a major reason why I lowered my rating, especially because I think it squashed some of Sorel’s potential as a character. But I will also have to read the finished version and see how it is edited.