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Disobedience
288 pages
A sharp, intimate exploration of the collision between queer desire, personal freedom, and the suffocating embrace of a devout community.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like stepping into a room where the air is thick with unspoken history and suppressed desire. The narrative moves at a steady, deliberate pace, drawing you deep into the claustrophobic yet strangely comforting rhythms of a tight-knit religious community. The prose is sharp and observant, laced with a wry humor that cuts through the heavy, nostalgic atmosphere. It is a deeply intimate reading experience, balancing the intellectual weight of theological debate with the raw, messy reality of human longing. You can feel the tension radiating from the pages as characters navigate the painful friction between duty and authenticity. It will thoroughly delight readers who crave complex, character-driven stories about the inescapable gravity of our roots and the quiet rebellion of choosing oneself.
- Mood
- claustrophobic
- intimate
- nostalgic
- tense
- Tone
- wry
- observant
- conflicted
- empathetic
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- weight of tradition · queer desire · faith versus freedom · grief and homecoming · boundaries of community
- The writing
- Sharp, intelligent, and deeply observant, balancing dry humor with profound theological and emotional inquiry.
- The arc
- Moves from defensive alienation and disruption to a complex, bittersweet reconciliation with the past.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love messy family dynamics, explorations of faith and sexuality, and stories about the tension between who we were and who we have become.
Content notes
- grief
- homophobia
- death of a parent
- religious trauma
About the book
By the age of 32, Ronit has left London and transformed her life. She has become a cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking, New York career woman, who is in love with a married man.But when Ronit's father dies she is called back into the very different world of her childhood, a world she thought she had left far behind. The orthodox Jewish suburb of Hendon, north London is outraged by Ronit and her provocative ways. But Ronit is shocked too by the confrontation with her past. And when she meets up with her childhood girlfriend Esti, she is forced to think again about what she has left behind.
Description from Open Library.
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