From Dust, a Review

From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos

#Jewish #Queer #ContemporaryYA #Fantasy

CW: Click Here

5/5

I noticed Rebecca Podos on Instagram when I saw a picture of the Home Grown Magic cover, although I did read this first. Podos writes about queer Jews, my niche! Now, I don't read a lot of Y.A. romantasy, which this review's book, From Dust, a Flame looked like from the cover. Still, I read the description and wanted to give it a chance. I shared a name with the main character and it was clearly about family! When I optioned it to my mom for a 2-person book club and she said yes, I knew I'd be reading it. 

From Dust, a Flame begins with Hannah's 17th birthday. She looks in the mirror to find that her eyes have changed to look cat-like. Her mother gives her a hamsa then leaves Hannah and her brother, Gabe, to find a specialist healer. Hannah and Gabe have not been raised Jewish or with any of the stories of their family's past. When their mom doesn't come back, it's up to them to figure out what happened and come home to the family their mom chose to be estranged from. When they meet Ari, they get more questions, but also some answers. Diving into the world of Jewish mysticism is their only way to come out the other side.

While reading From Dust, a Flame, I felt that it had a similar vibe to Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott, one of my favorite books. They're both Jewish-Queer books pulling from Jewish mysticism and the effects of antisemitism in the early 1900s. They have other similarities as well, but my point is that I'm not a huge fan of Y.A. fantasy, but I think this is something different. Modern Jewish Fantasy? Podos's book does come up quickly when I use that as a search. At first I thought it was interesting that Hannah and Gabe didn't know anything about Judaism. I wondered if some of it was almost unrealistic with how much their mom moved them around the country. I thought it might just be a way to invite a non-Jewish audience in. Turns out there was a very important reason that they weren't told. Their mother was trying to keep them safe from an ancient evil. Although, I'm quite glad that Hannah makes her mom take responsibility for not being a good mother along the way. I absolutely loved that all of the magic came from Judaism. We have a lot of it and it deserves to be in a modern queer Y.A. fantasy novel!

The main romantic relationship in this book is between Hannah and Ari, a Jewish girl with pink hair from the town Hannah's family is from. Hannah has spent so long trying to be what she thinks the perfect daughter would be that she hasn't looked inside for years. She hasn't explored who she might be. Then her body changes and she ends up seeking out her mother's past. That leads to Ari, and Hannah realizes she likes girls, must have always. Gabe is gay, and that's narratively used to explore gay subcultures. It also might be why he had such an attachment to a special golem the group finds. The golem uses they pronouns and Hannah has a completely separate conversation with her mom about assuming gender. Ari talks about how hard it is to be a queer girl in a small town, but I'm glad she had gotten to be close with Hannah's relatives. They are shown to be kind people, if a little nosy. 

I had a moment somewhere past the middle of From Dust, a Flame that I noticed how real everything felt. That I was hearing someone's story, not reading a fairy tale. Podos's writing made my suspension of disbelief happen very easily. It left me breathing heavily from the most tense and actiony moments! Everything fell nicely into place by the end of it, almost like a mystery novel. The magic was so well written, I was never confused. One of the best parts about the novel's structure is the dips into the past. There are 7 adjacent generations listed as well as two other older ones, there's also three time periods featured. Hannah's grandmother through memory-dreams or visions, Hannah's mother through vignettes of the 90s, and Hannah's present. The whole book was absolutely brilliant, no notes! 

If you're looking to explore Jewish mysticism, queer Jewish teen love stories, stories of dysfunctional families trying to fix things, or maybe your name is Hannah, I recommend Rebecca Podos's From Dust, a Flame. You'll be rewarded with Gabe's reactions to Hannah's transformations, Hannah and Gabe trying Jewish food for the first time, and trying to keep track of a massive family tree. I hope I've tempted you to open this book!