Two Stories About Women

Have you noticed a theme this month on the blog? The first post of the month went live on February 2. It was about two winners for January's book giveaway. The next post was about two excellent books. The last post was about two women dealing with cancer. AND, it's the second month of the year. This theming wasn't intentional, but I'm going with it!

To continue with February's theme of "two", in this post I am featuring two books, each about Jewish women.

In JUJITSU RABBI AND THE GODLESS BLOND, Rebecca Dana chronicles her love of all things New York - the fashion, the culture, the trend setters and the city itself. After coming out of a devastating break-up and moving into an apartment with a Russian rabbi, she examines her life - relationships, work, worshiping at the altar of New York - and tries to figure out if her chosen religion, following the guru Carrie Bradshaw, is what she needs to be doing with her life.

       

Self-indulgent? A little. She seemed compelled to name drop...celebrities she'd interviewed or famous people she'd seen at parties, and this got a little tiresome.

I mostly enjoyed her interactions with her rabbi roommate, Cosmo. He helped her reexamine her Jewish roots and delve more deeply into the Jewish faith. Dana wondered about the superficiality of her life and life choices. Is it enough to really love following fashion trends?

After her year of sharing an apartment with Cosmo, she came around to the New York life she'd chosen and was able to see it with new eyes and embrace it with new-found acceptance. And maybe a bit more appreciation for her Jewish roots as well.


In YOU WANT ME TO WHAT? THE DATING ADVENTURES AND LIFE LESSONS OF A NEWLY DIVORCED WOMAN, Nancy Lang chronicles "Ruthie's" story. (Ruthie may or may not be a thinly veiled - and I think unnecessary - cover for Nancy's own story.)

"Ruthie" signs up on a Jewish online dating service. "Ruthie" describes her dating experiences with men she met through the dating service as well as other men she's known and dated.

       

Sprinkled among her descriptions of often rather explicit dating exploits are Nancy's...uh, Ruthie's observations and insights that she learned through traversing the dating jungle. She shares the importance of trusting yourself, of being true to what you want, of communication, and not settling for second (or third or fourth!) best. Many of these seem to be hard won insights and life lessons. Learning the lessons the hard way seem to make them really hers.

She is honest and open about her mistakes as well as what she's gleaned from them.

She (Nancy) has a blog (http://www.nancytellsall.com/) that has the sub-heading: empowering and educating women and men with humor, revealing insights, and raw honesty. In the blog, she doesn't just focus on dating. She brings in examples from other parts of her life as well. Nancy is honest, open, and engaging, both in the book and on the blog, whether writing in Ruthie's voice or her own. The book - and the blog! - are definitely worth reading, even if you, like me, aren't actively dating.

I encourage you to check them out!

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Stay tuned for information about February's book giveaway in an upcoming post!

Clicking on the book covers will take you to Amazon's web page for each book. Clicking on the underlined book title may take you to Barnes and Noble's page for the book. Purchasing through these links helps support the blog and these authors! You can send email to us: 2of3Rs(AT)gmail(DOT)com. Thanks for stopping by!