Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy:
www.allthingsurbanfantasy.blogspot.com

THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN was a difficult book for me to write about, if only because I feel like I shouldn’t be reviewing it in the first place. Most of this book felt like an allegory that I couldn’t unlock, or a parable whose moral I didn’t understand. Despite a blurb that made me think this would be more accessible, I can say with confidence that THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN shouldn’t be classified as Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance.

My main point of disconnect with this story was the main character, Lilith. From the outset, it is clear that Lilith is unreliable and melodramatic. Seemingly simple events take place, all the while with Lilith quaking, shuddering, and generally over-acting her own story. When speaking to the Urban Fantasy genre, Lilith is the anti-thesis of heroine that learns and develops throughout the story. If nothing else, her break from reality grows more and more pronounced, and rather than believing that any real paranormal events were taking place around her, I was more convinced that she had an eating disorder, delusions, and an unhealthy obsession with her professor.

I have read books where an unreliable narrator adds spice to the proceedings, and I was able to enjoy untangling their observations from the greater “reality” around them (Iain Bank’s THE WASP FACTORY comes to mind). Unfortunately, THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN never managed to slip me into that process. The book’s arc did not center on Lilith (or the reader) gaining any greater sense or reality. Rather, we all spin deeper into Lilith’s psychosis without hesitation or clarity. THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN creates a caricature of an UF heroine in the real world. If Bella were written in the real Forks, Washington, most likely she would have ended up in a mental institution or dead in an alleyway when her blood-drinking, older “boyfriend” showed his true psychotic colors. That was the fate I kept expecting for poor Lilith (and part of me still believes that is Lilith’s “off camera” future).

While I don’t want to give you the impression that THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN was poorly written, it was certainly not something I would read for pleasure. There are details from the book that I enjoyed and will remember, and as a concept it is an interesting premise, but the process of reading this book was more chore than enjoyment for me.

Sexual Content: Descriptions of sex acts and sexual situations. ( )

I don't want to give anything away so I'm not sure how much I can say about it. We spend the whole book wondering, with the narrator, whether her professor is a vampire. In addition to definitely being part of the vampire genre, if only for the style of writing, it is also reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice, with a (perhaps) unreliable narrator, and Jane Eyre, which is filled with contrasting characters, many of them part of the Lilith-Eve dichotomy. All of these books have powerful, silent men and an innocent, young thing. The book also has modern concerns, like mother-daughter relationships, and lots of big city scenery, including a college that sounds very much like FIT; which is why it's not weird enough for me.

Nonetheless, it kept my interest and is worth thinking back now that I can see it whole and not just the details.

Being Jewish is important to Lilith, although she is not at all observant; her mother attends services, writes important books, and is very much a Jewish feminist. Lilith knows about tzedakah and Tikkun Olam, but she talks about the Old Testament, not the Bible. (A nice Jewish girl should know that "Old" only makes sense if there is a "New.")

There are some very tastefully done scenes of lovemaking that mean it's not for children, but fine for teens. ( )