Review: The Matzah Ball

The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.3 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

She had taken her secret, shameful love of Christmas and turned it into a successful career. 

The daughter of a highly influential Rabbi and top fertility clinic doctor in New York, Rachel has always been aware of all eyes on her, especially in the Jewish community. Leaning in hard into her love of Christmas, the decorations, music, and sense of joy, became her private escape, a place she could forget the pressures of the real world. She also turned it into a hugely successful career and became best-selling Christmas themed romance author Margot Cross. However, her publisher wants a Hanukkah inspired romance now and Rachel is struggling to find the magic in her own reality. Fortunately, The Matzah Ball Max is being held in New York and if Rachel can get a ticket to go, she is sure she can get some inspiration from this exclusive, high end ball that will celebrate Hanukkah. The problem is that it is being thrown by her Camp Ahava nemesis, Jacob Greenberg. 

Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt had saved him. 

And then she had broken his heart. 

Jacob hasn't been back to New York in eighteen years and observing Shabbat at the house of the parents of the girl who broke his heart when he was twelve, maybe not his best idea. After the death of his mother two years ago, Jacob has felt restless and returning to New York has him ready to face issues from his childhood that still linger inside him. When Rachel asks him for a Matzah Ball ticket, he sees it as the perfect opportunity to get her to open up more and a possibility to get their relationship back on track. When her volunteering goes horribly wrong and their relationship ends up worse than before, they both learn a little something about trust, opening up, and acceptance. 

They were both hiding. They just had different ways of doing it. 

Rachel used silence. 

And Jacob---like always, he reasoned---used noise. 

  

The Matzah Ball was a story that had a light tone with some chik-lit antics but also threaded through some weightier issues that provided some emotional heft. The pinpoint conflict between Rachel and Jacob is from their childhood, they had a prank adversary relationship at camp when they were twelve that slowly changed into a romance. Rachel thought Jacob took their pranks too far when he set up their first kiss to be witnessed by the boys in his bunk embarrassing her and Jacob is still hurt by Rachel standing him up at the camp dance. There's some Misunderstanding going on with their issues but what makes a twelve year old's grudge carried to thirty year old's work, was how the author intertwined it with their existing insecurities. Rachel always feels like she is being watched and judged because of who her parents are, being humiliated hits her extra hard and she felt like Jacob broke her trust. At the time, Jacob was dealing with his mother getting diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and his father abandoning them because of it. When they meet again as adults, the pain from camp lingers because of how it ties into their life insecurities but I also liked how the author still had them willing to test a friendship with each other again; nothing felt forced or childish about their conflict. 

“You're right,” he said, leaning into her, close enough for a second kiss. “We were never friends. We were so much more than just friends, Rachel...and you broke my goddamn heart.” 

Rachel is also living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome), which as a chronic illness, permeates her life everyday and makes her feel isolated even more. You feel for her as she tries to be “normal” and do volunteer work for the Ball and Jacob pushes her thinking their old prank relationship way will get her to open up more and it all blows up. In his apologizing, is where Jacob shines a lot and the growth of his character becomes apparent as he is forced to confront the issues with is dad and how that has shaped him. In the beginning, you just want them to address their camp misunderstandings but as a reader, it selfishly works because it gives us opportunity to watch them learn and grow. 

He was the type of person you could stand around the stove with on Hanukkah, burning latkes together and laughing hysterically, but also rely on to clean up the dishes when you were done. 

With the family and community Rachel has, we get more of Jewish culture from her and a couple times some explanations for the less observant or involved Jacob, which I'm sure is really more for gentile readers and I appreciated it but also enjoyed how language was used throughout to help with the setting. The secondary characters, from Rachel's bestfriend Mickey and to Jacob's friend and business partner Shmuel showed different levels of observant, giving that reminder that some need that not all groups are a monolith but also showed the connection that exists because of historical and cultural context. 

“Then fight for him.” Toby smiled emphatically. “Fight for him, Rachel-la! So many people think Hanukkah is about miracles. But Hanukkah is really about fighting for the things you believe in. Everybody focuses on the oil, but there would have been no oil, no lamp and no miracle had the Maccabees not taken up arms and stormed that darn temple. That's the thing people forget about Hanukkah. We make our own miracles, Rachel-la. We're in charge of creating our own happy endings.” 

The second half gave a little more of a focus on Jacob and his issues, which is why I wouldn't actually call this women's fiction, it's romance with a happily ever after, no bedroom scenes; if you've ever read Sonali Dev, it's along that same story-telling feel. The first half was sweet and showed how Rachel and Jacob matched together and the second half gives us more of the work and learning, Rachel finds out something about the Misunderstanding and Jacob finds out about Rachel's illness. They both learn how their vulnerabilities affect their relationships and life and then do the work to earn each other and because this is romance, some of that work includes a bedazzled wheelchair and a fire escape climb in a ball gown and fuzzy socks. This was tender, had some watery eyes moments, charming, and will have you wishing you had a bubbe in your life. 

Truth could be scary. Darkness might always endeavor to snuff out the light, but the strength of those who truly loved us would always push us forward. This was how we brightened an otherwise dark world. We filled it with truth, and love, and light.

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