Abomination (The Originals)

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The two men are living very different lives: Ezra is a secular atheist, while Yonatan is now a rabbi teaching at the Yahel Academy.

It’s a beautiful and compassionate exploration of male friendship and of what happens when the foundations of our world are rocked by forces we feel we cannot control.It's a quick read that manages to touch on some important topics and to encourage children to speak out against abuse, bullying and coercive behaviour. This fall stars when he attends the protest headed by Avraham Kliger, the brother of one of the abused boys. We spend half of our time in Scott's head, and half of the time in Martha's, and both characters are well drawn, but it is Scott who brings a touch of humour, and a good dose of normality to a book about something very strange indeed.

As we soon discover, though, some of their behaviours are far more gruesome than some slight neglect when it comes to their daughter's wardrobe. As a result her mother makes Martha conservative clothes complete with long skirts, the heat and electricity are off for the first half of every Sunday, which is devoted to prayer, sermons, and fasting. A sometimes intense but always honest and realistic exploration of faith, morality, power, belonging and identity. Yonatan and Ezra haven’t spo­ken in years, but when a molesta­tion scan­dal from their time at yeshi­va togeth­er creeps back into the head­lines, their paths cross again. Feel­ing like he doesn’t quite fit in, Ezra is plagued by anx­i­ety, self-doubt, and con­stant trou­bling thoughts.Martha isn't supposed to be friends with him, it's against her father's rules, but starved for some sort of connection she does so and starts breaking the family rules. I’m sure most people could point to a moment in their lives that they could identify as a turning point that resulted in them being who they are today, and I was curious about that, particularly with regard to myself and my upbringing in a modern Orthodox Jewish community. Notable reasons for recommending this book: There’s a multi narrative structure and a great final twist.

That said, it wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it is now, and I can’t imagine what it would be like for children today to have to navigate the expectations of the online world in addition to their day-to-day tribulations. Both Scott and Martha are bullied by the rest of their class, but they refuse to tell their parents or teachers what is happening to them. It’s really different from other books, because it’s a special story about a girl which is different from other’s. The alleged perpetrator is one of the rabbis who teach at the school and he is also spirited out of the country to avoid prosecution. The glimpses of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community were equal parts interesting and horrifying, but other than that there wasn't anything going on here.As far as Yonatan’s narrative goes, I don’t want to give too much away but there’s a questioning of faith there, and that questioning is mine—not for the same reasons as Yonatan, of course.