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A review by sandlynn
Miracles and Menorahs by Stacey Agdern
3.0
I read Miracles and Menorahs, a 2020 published novel by Stacey Agdern in e-book form.
This book is a cute little alternative to the gazillion Christmas novels published each year. It’s focus, as one might expect with Menorahs in the title, is Hanukkah, specifically a Hanukkah festival. Hollowville — a small town not too far north of New York City — has incidentally started a festival that no one else can claim. Due to a winter storm one year that brought many of the town’s folk within a synagogue in which they shared food and comfort, a yearly festival grew. Now, years later, Sarah Goldman — known as the Hanukkah Fairy — is in charge of the event. The only problem is, the town is questioning the festival’s ability to bring in tourist to justify its investment. Plus, there’s a city official who is pushing to have a holiday festival featuring a Christmas tree. Sarah’s desperate to bring in new vendors, food, and entertainment to make this year’s festival a huge success to ward off any challenges, but most importantly, she’s interested in finding an artist to create a huge, central masterpiece — a Menorah — that will be a highlight of the event. By chance, one of the town’s older citizens has a nephew who is a notable sculptor in New York City. She also Sarah’s friend and is happy to introduce him to her. The problem is Isaac Lieberman has mixed emotions about his great aunt’s small town and, more importantly, is not interested in using his art in such a commercial way. After all, whatever he would create for the festival would ultimately be replicated on trinkets, totes and other paraphernalia to support the festival, which is not how he would want such a significant symbol of his religion to be used.
As I mentioned, this is a rather cute little story, but I have to admit, it left me a little bored. The two leads were inoffensive, but Sarah’s uber Hanukkah enthusiasm got a bit on my nerves and Issac’s inexplicable feelings about using his art to promote Hanukkah was left virtually unexplained. The story could’ve used a great deal more background on Issac and his parents, who may have influenced his feelings, but we get very little. The impetus for Sarah’s actions are much better explained but I just thought she was overly obsessed and was too cloyingly cute about it. Furthermore, as Issac and Sarah got closer, they seemed to communicate less. If Issac had let Sarah know that he was changing his mind, a lot of grief would’ve been spared. What saved the story for me were the side characters — Issac’s friends from New York City and Sarah’s from Hollowville. They seemed more real and less the cardboard cutouts or stand-ins for the opinions and arguments they stood for. This just didn’t work for me as well as I hoped. I’d give it a B-/C.
This book is a cute little alternative to the gazillion Christmas novels published each year. It’s focus, as one might expect with Menorahs in the title, is Hanukkah, specifically a Hanukkah festival. Hollowville — a small town not too far north of New York City — has incidentally started a festival that no one else can claim. Due to a winter storm one year that brought many of the town’s folk within a synagogue in which they shared food and comfort, a yearly festival grew. Now, years later, Sarah Goldman — known as the Hanukkah Fairy — is in charge of the event. The only problem is, the town is questioning the festival’s ability to bring in tourist to justify its investment. Plus, there’s a city official who is pushing to have a holiday festival featuring a Christmas tree. Sarah’s desperate to bring in new vendors, food, and entertainment to make this year’s festival a huge success to ward off any challenges, but most importantly, she’s interested in finding an artist to create a huge, central masterpiece — a Menorah — that will be a highlight of the event. By chance, one of the town’s older citizens has a nephew who is a notable sculptor in New York City. She also Sarah’s friend and is happy to introduce him to her. The problem is Isaac Lieberman has mixed emotions about his great aunt’s small town and, more importantly, is not interested in using his art in such a commercial way. After all, whatever he would create for the festival would ultimately be replicated on trinkets, totes and other paraphernalia to support the festival, which is not how he would want such a significant symbol of his religion to be used.
As I mentioned, this is a rather cute little story, but I have to admit, it left me a little bored. The two leads were inoffensive, but Sarah’s uber Hanukkah enthusiasm got a bit on my nerves and Issac’s inexplicable feelings about using his art to promote Hanukkah was left virtually unexplained. The story could’ve used a great deal more background on Issac and his parents, who may have influenced his feelings, but we get very little. The impetus for Sarah’s actions are much better explained but I just thought she was overly obsessed and was too cloyingly cute about it. Furthermore, as Issac and Sarah got closer, they seemed to communicate less. If Issac had let Sarah know that he was changing his mind, a lot of grief would’ve been spared. What saved the story for me were the side characters — Issac’s friends from New York City and Sarah’s from Hollowville. They seemed more real and less the cardboard cutouts or stand-ins for the opinions and arguments they stood for. This just didn’t work for me as well as I hoped. I’d give it a B-/C.