It's My Party and I Don't Want to Go

May 15, 2020
It can't be that difficult to sabotage your own bat mitzvah. Ellie's shy, quiet, and afraid of interacting with almost everyone but her family and her only friend, Zoe. At older sister Hannah's bat mitzvah, Ellie had such a panic attack about appearing before strangers that she thought she was dying. Now she'll do anything to prevent her own bat mitzvah from happening--anything, that is, except tell her parents. Ellie (white and Jewish) harangues Zoe (black and Christian) into a series of increasingly goofball attempts to stealthily deep-six the bat mitzvah. From hiding the invitations to faking her own death, Ellie's shenanigans result in cringe comedy that (despite the embarrassment of the situations she creates) is always respectful of her devastating anxiety. The light touch leads to some too-easy solutions, with Ellie, at 12, effectively self-inventing cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorder before anyone else even knows she has a condition. Ellie's concern with her own mental health finds her selfishly ignoring Zoe's well-being, and working through the complications created by her unthinking cruelty requires getting through more anxiety spirals about damaged friendships. Humor keeps the tone light, nevertheless, perhaps never more so than in a massive and squishy food fight at a classmate's bar mitzvah. Personal growth plus the comedy of sundry humiliating situations created to avoid embarrassment: satisfying. (Fiction. 8-11)

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