Book Blurb:
Casey Cohen, a Middle Eastern Jew, is a sixteen-year-old in New Orleans in the 1970s when she starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then she gets in trouble and her parents turn her whole world upside down by deciding to return to their roots, the Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn.
In this new and foreign world, families gather weekly for Shabbat dinner; parties are extravagant events at the Museum of Natural History; and the Marriage Box is a real place, a pool deck designated for teenage girls to put themselves on display for potential husbands. Casey is at first shocked by this unfamiliar culture, but after she meets Michael, she’s enticed by it. Looking for love and a place to belong, she marries him at eighteen, believing she can adjust to Syrian ways. But she begins to question her decision when she discovers that Michael doesn’t want her to go to college; he wants her to have a baby instead.
Can Casey integrate these two opposing worlds, or will she have to leave one behind in order to find her way?
My Review: 4 stars
The Marriage Box by Corie Adjimi was an insider’s peek into the life of Casey Cohen, a character who moves from New Orleans to the Orthodox Syrian Jewish Community at age sixteen. The story is fictionalized, but the author’s family did decide to move from NOLA to Brooklyn and immerse Casey into the Syrian Orthodox Community.
The marriage box is a figurative saying for areas by the pool where young teens search for their future spouses. I’d never heard of this term; however, I am a secular Jew and love learning about other traditions and customs within my religion.
This book reads sparsely which I could appreciate but wish Casey was fleshed out more. Her back story with Hawkeye was rich with meaning and consequence, however I wanted to know her on a deeper level.
There is short vignette like chapters which make it highly readable. I loved the multiple nods 80s music. The ending left opportunity for a sequel but satisfaction if it ended as is. Overall, I loved learning about this community and loved her representation of her culture.
Quotes I liked:
No expectations, no disappointments.”
“Women are not the basement; we’re the foundation.”
“Inherent in choosing is loss.”
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