Never Mind the Goldbergs

March 7, 2005
Roth's rather bloated first novel begins with a compelling premise: Hava Aaronson, a 17-year-old Orthodox Jew with punk attitude, gets cast in a new television show called The Goldbergs
, and moves from New York City to Los Angeles for the summer taping. There, she has a wide range of experiences: Evie, her television sister, who at 15 is already used to sex and alcohol, takes her to Hollywood parties, while Hava and Charles, her television father, share an off-air kiss, challenging the teen's practice of shomer negiah
("We weren't supposed to touch boys we weren't related to"). Meanwhile, her classmate Moish also lands in L.A., making a film of every moment of his life, and the two outsiders search together for a place to worship, struggle with their beliefs and even take a road trip together to the Bay Area. Readers will appreciate the look into Hava's modern Orthodox Jewish culture and beliefs. In addition, the show itself, some of which appears in the narrative as script, leads to some funny moments (The Goldbergs
is about an Orthodox Jewish family that's "so unorthodox they're Orthodox!"); Hava's catch phrase on the show is "Oh vey
, dude!" But as the story goes on and on, readers will be left wondering what exactly the point is here. Unfortunately, a surreal moment towards the end, in which Hava meets the show's producers—three old rabbis and an old Jewish woman who work by candlelight—may be the point at which readers stop caring about Hava's journey. Ages 12-up.

June 1, 2005
Gr 9 Up -Seventeen-year-old New Yorker Hava Aaronson, a self-consciously observant Jew, is nonetheless unorthodox in many ways. She has spiked hair, loves punk culture, and punctuates her colorful, rebellious language with four-letter words (though she is reverently careful to refer to the Supreme Being as -G-d -). Her best friends are her confidant Ian, who is gay and not Jewish, and her platonic soul mate Moishe, who makes offbeat films and practices a kind of countercultural Orthodox Judaism. After a successful stint in a play, Hava is offered a lead role in a Hollywood sitcom about a caricatured American modern Orthodox Jewish family. She is immediately thrust into a world of make-believe and pretense, and spends the summer trying to sort out what is real and what isn't and what her religion means to her. Frequent visits from Ian and Moishe help to ground her, but most of her time is spent in a mixture of boredom, confusion, alienation, and often pointless (though sometimes humorous) rebellion. Hava tells her story in a vivid, funny, and distinguishable voice, but the narrative action is not sustained and her character development is not as clear as her barely controlled emotions and conflicted interior dialogues. Roth provides readers with an irreverent, insider look into two cultures and a portrait of a character trying to define herself in these very different environments." -Jack Forman, Mesa College Library, San Diego"

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