Debra E's Never-Ending TBR

This book just didn't work for me.

The first half was excrutiatingly slow, told in an alternating timeline of the narrator at 9 years old and at 17 years old. There was such an information dump about Hasidic history and culture in the first part of the book that it felt disjointed and unfocused and I wasn't able to connect with the story. When the narrative moved strictly to the present, the book moved along at such a quick pace and everything seemed to wrap up rather quickly. Perhaps it would be a more compelling read for someone completely unfamiliar with the Hasidic culture discovering the incredibly insular nature of their communities.