Princess of the Shtetl is one of my most anticipated releases, and it was so worth the wait (even though y’all are going to have to wait a bit longer because it’s not out until January – I’m sorry/you’re welcome?). Jake writes fantastic, fun middle grade novels, and Princess of the Shtetl is far and away his best to date.
Princess follows Bunke, an eleven-year-old girl living in a Russian shtetl during a time when the dangers to Jewish families are increasing and young Jewish boys are being stolen and forced to join the Russian military. Her father is a powerful figure in the community, and when a new group of Jews, Hasids, move into their shtetl it causes a lot of conflict within the community, and into Bunke’s home. These communal conflicts are exacerbated when their town’s rabbi dies, leaving no one to fill in the role, but the tsaddik, the leader of the Hasids, is moving to take up the role which makes the people, especially Bunke’s father and his cohorts, angry because of the different ways they practice judaism. Back to the ways the community is trying to protect their boys, they decide to get as many of them married as possible because surely married boys won’t be stolen, and the community decides to perform the marriages in the dark of the night before the tsar increases the age of marriage to 16. Bunke is forced to marry the son of the tsaddik, Shmuel, but she has never wanted to be a bride, only a scholar.
Bunke is one of my favorite characters of all time and she is so nuanced, especially her journey through the year the story takes place. She becomes best friends with the tsaddik’s daughter, Rivkah, who is trying to help Bunke find her divine sparks, but that friendship is forced to change when Rivkah is also married, but in contrast she is ecstatic. Bunke’s world is also in upheaval because her cousin, her soul-twin who she had never been apart from, was also married and he now lives with his wife’s family. Bunke really hates being a wife because she doesn’t want to be a woman, especially if it means she must obey her husband after having had to obey her abusive father, but when she spends more time with Shmuel he begins teaching her to read Hebrew and the torah, something she has always wanted access to. She hungers for knowledge and loves judaism and was so happy to have access to the Holy Language.
I also really loved the ways this dealt with growing up, and the historical setting was so obviously well researched and the care Arlow took in telling this story was so obvious. I love how Bunke experiences her first menstruation and the ways it changes her dynamic with her mom and her understanding of her reality because being a wife means, to society and community, that she has a responsibility, but her and Shmuel are able to have discussions about what they want out of their marriage. There’s also really great realizations about how her experiences with her father are abusive, especially as she hears how Rivkah’s experiences have been, but Bunke also has to struggle with adults are not perfect and everyone has flaws. This is also a quietly queer story, which I love and hope it will be able to get into more and more schools for the kids who need Bunke’s story. Bunke has a crush on Rivkah and the descriptions of her feelings about her body and gender and societal expectations all felt very trans-coded to me. There’s also really great depictions of different expressions of love between Bunke with Yitzakh-Asher (her cousin-twin), her different relationships with both Rivkah and Shmuel, the tsaddik’s kids, and her dynamics with her parents.
Princess of the Shtetl was one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I cannot wait for more audiences to have access to it. I think it’s an important story because we deserve more Jewish stories that aren’t about the Holocaust, and we need more stories for young readers figuring out themselves and their place in the world. It’s also important, in my opinion, that we can show stories about abuse so hopefully readers with similar experiences can name those experiences and get help, but also there is hope and ways of getting out. I really loved this book and hope Jake is able to tell Yitzakh-Asher’s story as well, because I for one need more!
Content Notes: abuse, mention of sexuality, mention of pregnancy, suicide, kidnappings, death, references to religious persecution
I received an advance copy of Princess of the Shtetl from the publisher via Netgalley for review purposes; this in no way influences my review.
