This is obvious even when reading the book from Feldman’s twisted point of view.įeldman is a special snowflake from the very beginning. Her family raised her in a strict religious household but they clearly loved her.

If you’re like me, you might assume that Feldman left her faith and family because of abuse or religious oppression but that just wasn’t the case.

Her mother abandoned her as a baby and her father was not mentally capable enough to care for her so she was raised by her grandparents with help from her aunt, Chaya. Unorthodox begins with a young Deborah Feldman who is being raised in a Hasidic Jewish family. I wish I could say that this book helped to further educate me or even entertain me but that wasn’t the case. I love learning about different religions and cultures so that’s the topics I tend to read about in nonfiction. I decided to buy the book version of the Netflix show after watching Marion’s review. This brings me to the actual book review… I actually would have been lost when reading this book if it wasn’t for her channel. I binge watched almost her entire channel after finding that review and I’ve learned SO much about Judaism. I’m paraphrasing her words but I definitely recommend watching her review and all of her videos in general. She tactfully said that the show didn’t quite portray the Jewish faith in the same way that she had experienced it throughout her life but she knew that it was probably dramatized for TV. I found one on Youtube by Marion at My Jewish Mommy Life. I had heard about a Netflix show called Unorthodox and was curious about it so I decided to look up reviews. Trapped as a teenager in a sexually and emotionally dysfunctional marriage to a man she barely knew, the tension between Deborah’s desires and her responsibilities as a good Satmar girl grew more explosive until she gave birth at nineteen and realized that, for the sake of herself and her son, she had to escape. It was stolen moments spent with the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott that helped her to imagine an alternative way of life. The instant New York Times bestselling memoir of a young Jewish woman’s escape from a religious sect, in the tradition of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel and Carolyn Jessop’s Escape, featuring a new epilogue by the author.Īs a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read. However, this book is not only boring but its author is also a perpetual victim and not so great person.

I’m usually not too critical of nonfiction because it’s not for me to say if somebody’s real life story is entertaining or not. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldamn is one of the worst books I’ve read.

Unorthodox scandalous rejection