Review: Hush by Eishes Chayil
Hush by Eishes Chayil
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don't know who actually wrote this book, but whoever she is, she's amazing. Eishes Chayil is a pseudonym and it means "Woman of Valor."
After nine years of keeping a painful secret, Gittel isn't sure she can hold her new life together. Her childhood friend, Devory, haunts her dreams and her thoughts. Even though Gittel has always done right by her highly Orthodox family in Brooklyn, she doesn't feel like she's doing right. She feels she has colluded with her community in betraying and killing her best friend.
Even though this book sounds heavy and depressing, the writing is so wonderful, it's impossible to put down. The story is narrated through the alternating view points of nine-year-old Gittel and 18-year-old Gittel, and the perspective is spot-on. Gittel's struggles with the usual aspects of growing up as well as the added complications of facing a crisis of faith after seeing evil first-hand, and seeing it go unpunished, are presented with such compassion and clarity it's eerie.
This is a must-read for fans of realistic YA fiction.
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