Jewish Genre Reading Challenge discussion

Welcome to the 2025 Jewish Genre Reading Challenge!

Thanks to everyone who participated in 2024, and welcome to all the newcomers here to make 2025 a year of reading jewishly.

The Book Chat thread is the place to talk about your current and upcoming reading, where you're currently at with the challenge, and anything else book or reading related. Feel free to discuss all your reading here, not just books you are reading for the Jewish Genre Challenge.

This year we won't be doing monthly threads, we'll try out just keeping the conversation going here in one single thread and see how that feels.

Excited to be back for 2025!

Happy to be here

I just completed reading Stations West, a Western by Allison Amend. The story centers around three generations of a Jewish family and their lives that began in 1859 with Bogy Haurowitz's migration to early Oklahoma, known then as the Indian Territory of the US West. The story's theme centers around their Jewish experience and identity, migration, disappointments, abandonment, and unfulfilled dreams. Amend's novel reminds me of Dicken's tales with his character development around social issues, a little of Stenbeck's exploration of human nature, especially his East of Eden novel, and Kerouac's On the Road with a free-spirited character. It was an interesting story, though somewhat dark at times.

So cool that you read Stations West! I read it for last year's challenge, so it's lovely to have someone to discuss it with. I agree, it did give Dickens' and Stienbeck vibes. I also agree it was dark in places.

I liked how it followed multiple generations and how it felt like each generation was passing on the baton to the next. I also thought the theme of assimilation was interesting. For instance Jewish identity was very important to the first generation who arrived in that town. Then as the generations went on it became less and less important.

I recently finished 'Murder Without A Duck'. Has anyone else read it?

I’ve not read Murder Without a Duck but the title is enough to grab my interest!

Jordan, this sounds like a book I would like to read. I’ve only recently started learning about the history of juice in the West, and it’s very interesting to me so I would love to learn more.

Tree wrote: "Jordan, this sounds like a book I would like to read. I’ve only recently started learning about the history of juice in the West, and it’s very interesting to me so I would love to learn more."

Stations West is more about the author's imaginative storylines about Bogy Johnson, an actual historical person who may have been one of the first Jews to go to Indian Territory. She nods to historical elements, e.g., the railroad and survival methods in the West. The author begins with the interactions of her imagined Bogy with different types of people, the situations he encounters, and his reactions to them. The elements of history are more of the backdrop for the "other," the less mainstream people, and their interactions, ethics, and the type of work available to them in the Indian Territory until it became a state. There's also a great deal of romanticism in some characters' imaginations of unrealistic situations regarding a future with the people they love but who have consistently disappointed them. Link to the website that mentions Bogy:
https://www.jmaw.org/oklahoma-exhibit...

Sophie wrote: "I recently finished 'Murder Without A Duck'. Has anyone else read it?"

I haven't read that series, but I may try it later. I'm reading Harry Kemelmans' Rabbi Small cozy mystery series.

I’m so sorry I just noticed a big mistake in my comment to Jordan, I used voice to text which clearly did not hear me say JEWS not juice

Jordan wrote: "Sophie wrote: "I recently finished 'Murder Without A Duck'. Has anyone else read it?"

I haven't read that series, but I may try it later. I'm reading Harry Kemelmans' Rabbi Small cozy mystery series."

I want to read more of these this year! I read the first one last year and liked it but haven't continued the series yet.

I just read, but didn’t finish, Scapegoated by Jeff Oliver, which I believe is self published as I can’t find it listed in Goodreads. I learned about it because he posted something in the Never Alone Book Club so I bought a copy in support.
The premise of the book is that an illness spreads across the country that turns out to be fainting goat syndrome. This affects everyone except Jewish people. The main characters are Reuven, a reality tv executive, Sarah, a scientist who has spent years researching this phenomenon among goats and eventually helps humans, and their teenage son, Joshua.
The premise is funny, and early on there are quite a few laugh out loud moments. It’s also an effective plot to depict how pernicious antisemitism is.
However, it’s far too crude for my taste, and the main character Reuven is unlikable, as are nearly all the other characters. Maybe most readers don’t mind an unlikable main character, but I do, and if there’s nothing else to hold my attention like good writing or solid secondary characters then I find little enjoyment in the story.
I finally gave up more than halfway through.

It's February, and our genre of the month this month is Urban Fantasy/Paranormal. You can check out the database here: https://www.readjewishly.com/books?Ge... and the Goodreads list here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

This theme actually works out fortuitously for me because I'm on the third book of an urban fantasy series by Rachel Rener. Inked is the first book in the series.

I've done reading challenges for the past several years, and reading for specific prompts (or needing to read from diverse genres, like for JGC) meant I started a lot of series that I never continued with at the time. So 2025 is the "Year of the Series" for me. Before starting Inked I finished a fantasy series that I only recently discovered had additional books. I thought it finished as a trilogy many years ago, but then discovered that nine years later the author wrote two more books! (It's the Graceling series. Not Jewish though.)

I've also been catching up on the show School Spirits, which is about a teenager haunting her high school, trying to figure out how she died. It appears to be a supernatural time for me right now.

Do you read urban fantasy? Deborah Wilde is a prolific author with multiple urban fantasy series, all with Jewish main characters! I read Blood & Ash last year and loved it; the rest of the series is on my Series TBR to read this year.

What about other kinds of Jewish genre books with supernatural elements, like Night Owls with estries (Jewish shapeshifting owl vampire women!) or Benji Zeb is a Ravenous Werewolf? I read both of these during the JGC and recommend them.

And of course we can't forget that mainstay of paranormal fiction, the paranormal romance. Depending on your tastes, you might enjoy My Roommate Is a Vampire, Hearts Alight (Chanukah golem romance!), or even Inked by the Ithaqua.

Ooh ooh can I count Next Stop as paranormal? It's a near-future dystopia with Weird Stuff going on! I just finished that.

And really interested to hear such several people have read Stations West! It's on my TBR for a while and I'm hoping to read it for This or That: new genre this year - I haven't read any Jewish Westerns (maybe never read ANY Westerns)?

I’ve completed reading Kellerman’s The Butcher’s Theater and Kaniuk’s The Last Jew. The former was definitely a thriller. The Last Jew was very dystopian. I’m not a huge fan of either genre but if you enjoy those genres then these 2 books will be worth reading. I need a break to bring my thoughts back to something less thrilling or dystopic. 😳