Once More With Chutzpah by Haley Neil
CW: Discussions of Antisemitism, Religious Gatekeeping, Struggles with Anxiety, Mourning/Grief, Underage Drinking, Car Crash, Death, Detailed Discussions of the Holocaust, Discussions of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Queer-Phobia, Descriptions of Panic Attacks, Discussions of Racsim
5/5
Once More with Chutzpah was everything I wanted it to be and more! Simply put, it's a story about a trip to Israel. I worried about its potential to be toxic propaganda, but that was not the case! I will discuss what I mean by this later. I am glad I stumbled upon this book and read it. It is underrated, so I am hoping that you will all give it a chance, no matter how you feel about Israel.
As previously mentioned, this book centers around an Israel tour. It is not Birthright, nor does it pretend to be. It is organized by the temples of those on the trip, including Tally, our main character and her twin, Max. Max survived a car crash 6 months prior, one that killed the driver. Ever since, he's been heavily in mourning. Tally decided that this trip would be a good way to get some normality back in his life. Along the way, they gain a group of friends, some hope for the future, and time to reflect on the past. Tally also starts to discover things about her Jewish, romantic, and sexual identities. The trip is more than either the characters or the readers expect.
If you do not know about the conflict in Israel regarding the treatment of the Palestinians, while this book will teach you some things, I do not recommend it as a place to start. I would recommend a non-biased news source (such as the Associated Press) and go from there. If you do already have some understanding or more, then Once More with Chutzpah will be a meaningful read. It acknowledges why people are so attached to Israel as a Jewish home state while also stating that the way Palestinians are treated is not okay. This book is not Zionist propaganda, which a Birthright trip easily can be, and what I was worried the book might be. I took the risk, and thank Haley Neil it wasn't my worst case scenario.
I greatly appreciate the time spent exploring Tally as a character and how she was written. The major plot twist in the middle of the book caught me off guard and raised my opinion of the book, but it is more than that. Tally suffers from anxiety, something I can relate to greatly. We witness her fidget in different and validating ways, she runs through the symptoms of panic attacks as a way to stabilize herself, and there are both moments where her anxiety gets the better of her and ones where she gets the better of it. She also worries about not being seen as Jewish enough. Her family doesn't do Shabbat anymore and her father is the Jewish parent. Unfortunately, we do live in a society in which these things get judged. There's a scene important to the read in which the trip participants share their struggles with antisemitism and gatekeepers. As for Tally's romantic and sexual identity, as someone on the ace spectrum, it's just nice to see more ace-spec characters.
I was initially going to give this book a 4 instead of a 5 because it didn't feel like it had enough at stake during it. I do not wish to spoil the aforementioned plot twist, but you will notice that I did end up rating Once More With Chutzpah as a 5/5. The pacing worked well for a book that takes place over 2-ish weeks, thankfully not ending before its time. It does have some unanswered questions at the end, but Tally is okay with them, so the reader is too. All of the characters are well developed, even the minor ones. The imagery and use of onomatopoeia were helpful throughout. The only problem I ran into was that it was sometimes difficult to determine which character was talking in audiobook format. And while I loved the musical numbers as chapter titles, I couldn't always tell what musical they were from. Overall, I found the book was very well written!
If you do choose to read this book, it covers some very serious topics and potentially will make you cry. It's very good, but it is not a light read. Proceed with caution, but it will be worth it in the end.
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