Turning Thirteen

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

When she notices that Dina is spending too much time with Amy, a new girl in class, Becky decides that since Amy isn't Jewish, the only way to get her best friend back is for them to have a Bat Mitzvah together.

133 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Susan Beth Pfeffer was an American author best known for young adult and science fiction. After writing for 35 years, she received wider notice for her series of post-apocalyptic novels, officially titled "The Life as We Knew It Series", but often called "The Last Survivors" or "Moon Crash" series, some of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book turned out to be surprisingly deep, and I read it several times when I was a kid. When I was a teenager I went to camp with a girl who said she was a "Jewish atheist" (which is the story of Turning Thirteen), and when some other campers were saying that was impossible, I was happy to be able to give her my copy of this book (in which a rabbi says that that's totally possible).

[leandro 𖤓 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't finish. Personally, I didn't enjoy it very much. There's nothing wrong with the writing, it's just not my cup of tea.

[Dana Jerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Logging this book rn is hilarious to me, having read a hardcopy as a tweenager just because it was around. I remember it being approachable and consuming it quickly on my first charter bus ride on a class trip. Ah, youth. 💕

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite part of this book was it reminded me of (some) long term friendships between 12 and 13 year old girls. I also liked that it touched on some aspects of Judaism and atheism. I thought that it was way too short. I think that it would have been a better book if it had been much longer and gone into more depth about all the issues and relationships, but I guess the author did a good job with the relatively few pages that were there. I really liked the rabbi in this book and I appreciated the thoughtful, albeit brief, way the subject matter was handled.

I’ve always been a Jewish atheist and grew up with two agnostic Jewish parents so, while I didn’t identify with the characters in this book as much as I thought I might, it was interesting to read these various characters beliefs about religion.

I’m a huge fan of the author’s more recent books Life as We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone, and I enjoyed reading this book published 2 decades earlier.

[Jaelyn O · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book so far is about two best friends that are jewish and they are turning thirteen and when you are jewish and turning thirteen you have a bat mitzvah. That is when you invite almost everyone you know like family members and friends and neighbors people like that. Well there is this new girl at their school and Jill starts to like her better than Dina. So Dina is getting mad because she thinks Jill likes the new girl better than her. And they were planning to have there bat mitzvah on the same day together since they were praticuly born on the same day. So Jill is all mad at Dina because she thinks the new girl Amy is taking Dina away from her. So Jill is going to try to change that and try to have Amy like her better than Dina.

[Sarabia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about a 12 year old girl who feels that she is losing her best friend. So she comes up with this plan for her and her best friend to have their bat mitzvahs together. In the process of preparing for the bat mitzvah, the girl decides to becomes in atheist Jew. This book is well written, and it teaches you many lessons including, you can only be yourself. I give it two thumbs up!