Customer Reviews

You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah!

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My 14 yr old (very picky reader) daughter was drawn to read this book by the cover. She had her Bat Mitzvah last year. Sometimes you CAN judge a book by its' cover. She read it constantly, even walking around the house and then told me I HAD to read it. I am glad I did as it is laugh out loud funny and true to the highs and lows of teenage emotions. Some events were definitely more (advanced) than my daughter has lived through, but the book exposed her to far less than a typical PG-13 movie. I highly recommend this book and plan to share it with other teenagers through our Temple library. Although we read the book from the post Bat Mitzvah stand point, this is a book that would appeal to anyone who is experiencing or has lived through that time of flucuating emotions and friendships that is so common to the teenage years. We loved it!

I just turned thirteen years old and my bat mitzvah is in four weeks. I started to get nervous and my mom noticed. She bought this book for me to read thinking it would help me. I read the whole book in two days. When i first opened the book i expected a novel about the preperation a twelve year old girl had to do until her bat mitzvah, but with a twist of humor. Instead, i got just the twist of humor and not as much of the religious concept. I was really hoping this book would ease my nerves about my upcoming bat mitzvah, but instead it just gave me a good laugh. I would recommmend this book to most people because you dont actually have to have knowledge of the jewish religion to read this. But if your looking for help with YOUR bat mitzvah, this is not the best book to turn to.

A book review by Aria Wexler
You Are so Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah is an outstanding novel written by Fiona Rosenbloom. The book is Rosenbloom's first and only book. Miss Rosenbloom writes the book in the perspective of a Jewish teenage girl's emotion as she becomes a young adult. Throughout the book Rosenbloom uses shorter sentences to get the point across. The protagonist of the book is Stacy Friedman. She is only asking God for a few things.
The, realistic fiction, book mainly focuses on a young girl growing up. It explains the emotions that Stacy has to go through with her parents divorce, a younger brother, her crush, and friendship. Just when Stacy thought that her mother and father would get back together she finds out her father has a girl friend, and she has to watch her mother suffer without a husband anymore. Stacy feels humiliated about her brother, Arthur, who is at least 20 pounds over weight and extremely intelligent. Stacy has a huge crush on Andy Goldfarb, but she just isn't sure if he likes her back. Most importantly Stacy ends up uttering the words that she has been dreading, and she ends up saying it to someone very close in her life. She screams at them "You are so not invited to my Bat Mitzvah!"
Since Stacy is planning and studying for her bat mitzvah, a Jewish ceremony of coming of age, she needs to meat with the Rabbi. After talking with Stacy he fills that it would help her to do 3 Mitzvah projects, (community service work) before her bat mitzvah. Stacy struggles with the mitzvahs (good deeds) she chooses to do. The day before her bat Mitzvah she feels like she has done three failed mitzvah projects. In the end do Stacy's Mitzvah's finally work out or has she completely failed?
I would give this book two Thumbs up! Through Stacy Friedman's thoughts, feelings, and personal experiences Fiona Rosenbloom has made the book inspiring throughout. The book was a real cliff hanger! I highly recommend this book for especially girls ages 11-15. You don't need to be Jewish to read and relate to this spectacular book
Number of pages: 190

I thought this book was going to be about some rich girls bat mitzvah. i also thought that it was going to be good for girls that have had or is going to have a bat mitzvah. i was like oo i am going to love this book. i was totally wrong though. i thought it was really enjoyable to read though. i read it in just 2 days!! this book is more like a book about friendship. it is kind of typical story for a girls life (if you and your friends are really dramatic). I think girls whose friends and them have a lot of drama going on in their life will love this book! Even if not you will like it. this is a great beach read, it is a page turner!! oh and if you didnt catch on you do not have to be jewish to read this book i think.

Fiona Rosenbloom's You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah! (0786856165, $15.99) is both hilarious and revealing, telling of one Stacy Friedman, getting ready for the highlight of her life, her bat mitzvah. She plans for success, friendships and romance, but when she struggles with her mother's idea of fashion, difficulty with the mitzvahs, and conflicts, her bat mitzvah begins to look like more of a disaster than a success. A wide audience, even non-Jewish readers, will appreciate Stacy's realistic dilemmas.

I read this book to gain a better understanding of the Jewish Batmitzvah and was sorely disappointed. This book is about girl drama and nothing more. True there were some laughs, but this book cannot be judged by its cover because religion is the back story. These kids just happen to be Jewish.
Then I was shown an article blog by the author, where she admits that Fiona Rosenbloom is a pen name and she has absolutely NO AUTHORITY or knowledge about the Jewish religion. Basically, she was approached to write the book and saw it as a chance to make some money. She even chose a Jewish sounding pen name, and dresses up in a wig when she does author appearances. Even after admitting to not knowing what she was talking about, she went on to write a sequel.

PLEASE PLEASE do not give this author your money. There are better books out there! Unless you just want to read about girl drama, don't let this cover fool you.

This book had me laughing out loud multiple times, which is uncommon for any kind of book and certainly uncommon for YA. The made-up hip-hop slang alone was hilarious, and the way it built from chapter to chapter was ingenious. My only criticism is that there was a bit too much sex-and-the-city style brandname-dropping. Not my thing. But still a very funny book, and not just fluff.

I was given this book just 5 days before my bat mitzvah and instead of studying i read it constintly i couldn't put it down!!!!!!!!!!!!!



IT WAS THE BEST BOOK I EVER READ

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah engagingly confronts the reader with the real issues most in the foreground of most middle to upper class urban and suburban, non-Orthodox twelve and thirteen year-old girls - clothes, divorcing parents, fitting in with the peer group, mean-spiritedness among girls, drinking, smoking, and somewhere between 12 and 13, kissing and being touched by boys. This is a must read for parents, Hebrew School, day school, youth group and summer camp staff. Don't say your adolescent isn't suffering through most of the issues addressed, my own doctoral studies documented that 60-73% of our youth are indeed getting physical with each other by age 13. That said, Jewish values lurk, but are not the strength of this book, where the typical meaningless bar/bat mitzvah preparation process hangs out in the plot's background. It seems that if not for a run-in between rabbi and student, Jewish values might not have emerged at all, given that it features cell phone use on Shabbat and celebrates a first kiss with a boy as the highlight of a bat mitzvah party experience. Given the controversial subject matter, parents and teachers must preview in order to decide whether it is suitable for your bar/bat mitzvah students to read within the context of local values. Also, not all educators, tutors and rabbis will have facilitation skills for the level of discussion that begs to ensue from reading this but all Jewish educators will benefit from discussing this book. NOW is the time for Jewish educators to create safe forums, with Jewish values added, to support our youth and parents in navigating this amazing and challenging phase of the journey called life.
Review written by, Rabbi Dr. Goldie Milgram, author, Make Your Own Bar/Bat Mitzvah: A Personal Approach to Creating a Meaningful Rite of Passage.

Stacy Friedman has a lot to accomplish in the month before her Bat Mitzvah. She has to find the perfect Bat Mitzvah dress, join the coolest clique in school, and most importantly, convince her longtime crush Andy Goldfarb that he's in love with her so she can have her first kiss at her Bat Mitzvah party. But with a hideous new dress, a lonely mother, an uncool brother, and, to her horror, a betraying best friend, Stacy is forced to take desperate measures to make all her Bat Mitzvah dreams come true in time for the big day.

Fiona Rosenbloom has written a warm, lighthearted story of a girl who's learning about priorities, friendship, and truly good deeds. While we've seen some of the details before, such as brand-name dropping and ongoing chats with God --- and we'll probably never see anything like Stacy's gutsy and life-changing Bat Mitzvah speech --- these minor cliches and sudden epiphanies are easily overlooked thanks to a fast story and a winning, spunky protagonist.

There are no big surprises here, but as Stacy approaches the day when she symbolically becomes an adult, she learns a few important lessons about making adult choices and compromises, and about what is worth holding onto and what might not be. Readers will relate to Stacy's various dramas, such as worrying about her divorced mother (and her mother's questionable taste in dresses), wondering if Andy likes her or not, and the fear of losing a best friend.

With humor and the occasional Jewishism, YOU ARE SO NOT INVITED TO MY BAT MITZVAH! is an entertaining glimpse into one of the most meaningful events of many young girls' lives, the Bat Mitzvah. Not to mention, of course, that other important event --- the first kiss.

--- Reviewed by Emily Shaffer