Lively ... has the timing, wit, and warmth of a screwball screenplay that isn't allowed to idle for more than a beat ... Sthers captures her characters' distinct voices and dueling positions with practiced concision and obvious relish ... does get emotional. The wisecracks and barbs give way to sentiment — along with its soppy twin, sentimentality — as these characters break down the distances between them with heartfelt words. Sthers has a tendency to lay it on thick ... Are there miracles in Holy Lands? Well, maybe not. But Sthers' human-all-too-human characters do learn what's sacred.
Comedic and sorrowful ... quick-footed, perfectly choreographed, piercingly funny, and poignant ... s each articulate, conflicted, and ardent character endures life-altering experiences, Sthers incisively and provocatively questions crucial matters of religion, morality, inheritance, compassion, and love.
... a compelling novel of familial relationships ... Sthers spares us the predictable sentimentality that would rob her well-drawn characters of their complexity and their messy but necessary journeys ahead ... While Sthers may be guilty of loading up narrators with a fair measure of neurotic baggage, we are left with characters who bug us and endear us through their painful search for love.
Sthers has a fine sense for the way that the tragic, the comic, and the tender become mingled ... Her slim, swiftly moving novel describes the complicated relationships between siblings, a married couple, a man and his rabbi and still has room for a light critique of Israel’s policies toward Palestine. This is a book you can read in an afternoon, but it’ll stick with you for much longer than that ... Comic, moving, and occasionally profound, Sthers’ novel is a delight.
Swerves from harshly funny to surprisingly touching ... Caustic and gentle jokes leaven the serious concerns about Israel’s militarized security, Jewish identity, and the dysfunction of Harry’s family. This moving novel manages a delicate balance between humor and tenderness among a family incapable of interacting without rancor.
